Yasmin Hassan

EGP official at 49.2 vs parallel 51.8 — spread widened to 5.3% from 2.1% in September. Corridor arbitrage is back. Exporter margins expanding, importer working capital tightening. Q4 earnings will bifurcate on this axis.

Vodafone Cash monthly actives crossed 22m — ~2.1x its nearest telco-banking peer. Telco-led banking penetration in Egypt now 31% vs traditional bank account penetration at 27%. The distribution hierarchy has inverted.

CIB's FX deposits now 34% of total vs 22% pre-devaluation. Every 10% EGP move adds ~180bps to NIM on the dollarised book. The best hedge in Egyptian financials is still the balance sheet mix.

Suez Canal transit revenues recovered to $650m in November vs $340m April trough — the sovereign risk premium is 40bps too wide against this run-rate. FX-in-current-account math is under-appreciated.

Instapay processed EGP 4.1trn TTM, up 118% YoY. Merchant transaction share now 28% — the interoperability rails have crossed the threshold where merchant economics start to matter. Acquirer fees compress next.

Egyptian sovereign eurobond spreads tightened 140bps YTD but domestic T-bill yields still at 27%. The dual-currency yield gap is the widest in EMEA — either the local curve rallies or the FX narrative unwinds.

Banque Misr's SME onboarding runs at 4x the pace of the private-sector Tier-1s — state-bank digitisation is the sleeper story in Egyptian financials this cycle.