Gov’t begins to roll out Meeza debit cards

The Finance Ministry began distributing almost 5 mn “Meeza” debit cards to public sector workers at the beginning of September as part of government efforts to increase financial inclusion, it said in a statement. Ten banks are participating in the scheme, including Banque Misr, the National Bank of Egypt, Banque du Caire, and CIB. The government originally planned for civil servants to begin receiving their salaries via Meeza at the beginning of August. It distributed some 18k point-of-sale machines to government entities and made it mandatory for government payments over EGP 500 to be paid electronically starting 1 May.