The Effect of Microfinance Ecosystem on Financial Inclusion in Egypt

As of 2021, 28% of the Egyptians live below the poverty line, and according to the Central Bank of Egypt, 43.8% of Egyptians do not have access to basic financial services (CBE, Financial stability report 2021. CBE, Cairo, 2022). Egyptians who live below the poverty line and do not have access to basic financial services can be covered through microfinance services, which face some barriers in Egypt, such as the legislative regulations that prevent microfinance institutions from deposit-taking. The aim of this chapter is to identify areas of improvement in the Egyptian microfinance ecosystem that can allow low-income people to be financially included. This is achieved by assessing the Egyptian market against the best practices of I-SIP theory, which considers three key factors: stability, integrity, and protection. This study emphasizes the significance of saving for individuals by analyzing data of ten nations, gathered from the databases of the World Bank's "Findex 2021" and the International Monetary Fund. The study spans a period of 14 years, from 2008 to 2021. The results have revealed significance effects of each of "number of deposit-taker branches," "outstanding deposits (% of GDP)," "total deposit accounts, number of microfinance branches," "multiple lending," and "interest rate spread (lending rate minus deposit rate)" on each of "average no. of services per adult" and "nonperforming loans (NPL)."