WATCH THIS SPACE- The CBE is getting ready to hand out its first digital banking licenses, according to bank sub-governor Rami Aboulnaga, who said Thursday that licenses would be handed out “during the next few weeks,” the state-run MENA agency reported him as saying.

Five banks have so far submitted bids to get in on Egypt’s nascent digital banking space: The National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr, Emirates NBD, QNB Al Ahli, and Bank ABC have all reportedly applied for licenses from the CBE. E-Finance, Baraka Bank and the Suez Canal Bank are also interested in entering the sector.

We’ve been waiting for this since 2020: Plans for the issuance of specialized banks’ licenses have been in the works since the Banking Act was signed into law in September 2020. The law exempts such banks from meeting the same capital requirements as standard brick-and-mortar commercial banks, with the amount of required capital to be set on a case-by-case basis.