The Egyptian Credit Bureau (I-Score) has achieved a 17% growth in profits, estimated at LE147 million, during the year 2020 in comparison to LE126 million a year earlier, a senior company official said.
Mohamed Kafafi, Chairman and Managing Director of the company, added that the General Assembly of the company has approved a decision by the company’s Board of Directors to distribute LE100million from the profits among shareholders.
Kafafi noted out that “In line with the State’s and Central Bank of Egypt’s approach towards digital transformation and financial inclusion, the Egyptian Credit Bureau “I-Score” signed several protocols with several ministries, topped with that signed with the Internal Trade Development Agency (ITDA), and the other with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to provide data for government agencies.
This is in addition to another cooperation protocol signed with the General Administration of Traffic Information Systems to register car bans electronically.
A protocol for linkage with the Ministry of Justice, to exchange bankruptcy data and preventive bankruptcy electronically, was also initiated.
During the coming period, the Bureau will initiate a link with the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) to issue certificates of company incorporation and to enquire about partners before the certificates of incorporation be issued.
It is noteworthy mentioning that the I-Score’s strategy for the period from 2020-2022 is in line with the requirements of the banking market and other financial sectors; while at the same time it works to create awareness on the credit culture.
“From another scope, the company is preparing a system that allows banks to enquire about deaths, based on the protocol signed with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development and the CBE,” the company said in a statement.
It added that as part of the third edition of rules governing the provision of mobile payment services, recently issued by CBE, the company is preparing to provide a “Behavioral Scoring” product for customers. Such a product is one of the most unique products that will contribute significantly to financial inclusion and digital transformation initiatives will also be considered an added value to the many products that I-Score has provided for this purpose.
The company is also preparing modern digital evaluation systems to include digital evaluation of agricultural loans to individuals and companies without credit dealings.
I-Score has also been operating the Egyptian Collateral Registry (ECR) since March 2018, under the supervision of the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), which has improved Egypt’s ranking in the Doing Business report, especially the Getting Credit Index in 2020. Egypt ranked 65 in such an index compared to the 90th position in the 2017 report.
“A total of 85,938 declarations were registered on the ECR in April 2021, with a total value of LE777 billion, while the number of entities involved in ECR services reached 84 credit grantors,” the statement said.
Before the I-Score company started its commercial activity in the Egyptian market in 2008, the index of access to credit information “Getting Credit” was 170, but in the Doing Business Report 2020, Egypt was ranked 65 and the depth of credit information is 8 out of 8 degrees, which explains the importance of the economic role bureau contributes to, Chairman Kafafi said.
It added that the I-Score’s database has grown to contain data from 20 million individual credit customers and 450,000 small-and medium-sized enterprises in April 2021.
The number of Members of I-Score services has reached 950 subscribers distributed among banks, companies and microfinance associations, who are exchanging credit information.
