Banking services still hit by widespread telecom outage: Banking services, including online and mobile banking, remained impacted yesterday by the fire at Ramses Central that broke out on Monday, four sources in the banking sector told EnterpriseAM. Some banks restored operations by switching to emergency systems, the sources added.

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It’s business as usual at National Bank of Egypt (NBE) branches, but some services remain impacted, a source from the state-owned lender told EnterpriseAM yesterday. The internal system for branches near Downtown Cairo “might experience slowdowns today [Tuesday], and we are working to fully resolve the issue,” the source noted.

ATMs and POS are still down: ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) devices continued to be impacted because of their reliance on internet connectivity, the sources said. All pending transactions are expected to be processed once network efficiency is fully restored, our sources added. “Withdrawal and deposit services are expected to gradually return starting from today’s [Tuesday] transactions,” the sources told us yesterday.

What about InstaPay? Digital payment platform InstaPay “is currently operating efficiently, and will be fully restored during the coming hours,” a source in the banking sector told us yesterday.

Amid the disruptions, CBE temporarily doubled the daily cash withdrawal limit for individuals and companies to EGP 500k, it said in a statement yesterday.

The reason behind the move? This decision will remain in effect until the communication systems are fully restored to normal levels, the CBE noted. Meanwhile, some bank branches will be extending their operating hours during working days until 5pm, instead of 3pm, the CBE said in a separate statement (pdf). This decision will remain in place until further notice. Each bank will determine which branches will implement these extended hours, based on their geographical distribution across the country.

FinMin authorizes cash payment amidst outage: The Finance Ministry has temporarily greenlit cash collection for government services. This measure is authorized specifically when internet and telecom services are disrupted, making non-cash payment methods unavailable, according to internal directives from the ministry seen by EnterpriseAM.

Fawry’s services were only affected by 30-35%, CEO Ashraf Sabry stated in press remarks yesterday. Fawry’s Head of Investments, FP&A and IR Hassan Abdelgelil told us that “there are no problems with Fawry’s network.”

E-finance system is stable: All systems at state-owned fintech giant E-finance are operating efficiently, a source from the company told EnterpriseAM. However, users might face issues when attempting to pay bills or service fees due to temporary disruptions in internet services from telecom companies, according to our source and a statement released by E-finance.

Nafeza operates on paper: Nafeza has also been impacted, a source from the custom clearance platform told EnterpriseAM, noting that Nafeza system is currently using a wireless internet system. “Due to service outage, data is currently entered manually (on paper), to avoid any issues with custom clearance,” the source said, adding that all data will be uploaded to the system once internet connection is restored.

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