Is your money market fund still the best place for your banknotes?

📈💸 If you’ve been keeping your savings in a money market fund over the past year, you’ve been doing well. Returns of 19-20% annualized, full liquidity, no lock-in — it looked like the obvious alternative to a three-year bank certificate. That’s still broadly true. But the rate environment that made money market funds so attractive is changing, and the question worth asking now is this: What happens to your returns when the CBE starts cutting rates again?

Before we get into that — a quick refresher on how money market funds work, seeing as a lot has changed since we last covered them in May in our Money Matters signature series.

What a money market fund actually does

A money market fund pools money from thousands of investors and deploys it into short-term, low-risk debt instruments — primarily Egyptian Treasury bills, bank deposits, and government securities. A professional fund manager handles the allocations. The returns generated by those instruments are reflected daily in the fund’s net asset value (NAV), which is what causes your balance to tick upward every day rather than arriving as a fixed monthly payment.

What you own is not the T-bill itself. You own units in the fund, and the value of those units rises gradually as the underlying instruments generate income. The fund manager charges a management fee deducted from returns, so what you receive is the net yield after costs. The key selling point has always been liquidity: most money market funds allow redemption within one or two working days, unlike a certificate of deposit that locks your money for one to three years.

It’s a big market

Egypt’s investment fund industry was an EGP 316 bn market toward the tail-end of 2025 — it’s grown exponentially since. By the end of March 2026, NAV had hit EGP 411 bn — up 30% in a single quarter. By the end of June, it had climbed even further to EGP 471 bn, according to the FRA’s 2Q 2026 report. The number of fund certificates outstanding jumped 40.2% in a single quarter — growing three times faster than the assets themselves, which means new money is flooding in, not just existing holdings appreciating. Individual investors now hold 74.7% of all fund certificates.

Money market funds remain the dominant category, accounting for roughly 67% of total industry NAV. They are no longer a niche product for financially sophisticated investors. They are a mainstream savings vehicle — and the people who hold them are mostly retail investors making decisions in real time.

But are money market funds worth it in the long run?

The CBE has cut rates by 825 basis points since April 2025, bringing the overnight deposit rate to 19%. It paused in May and has held since, with most analysts expecting the hold to continue through 3Q. But the direction of travel is not in doubt — rates are heading down, the debate is only about timing.

Here’s why that matters for money market fund holders: the yields these funds generate are directly tied to prevailing T-bill rates. When the CBE cuts, T-bill yields fall, and money market fund returns compress — with a short lag as older, higher-yielding instruments mature and are reinvested at lower rates. A fund returning 20% annualized today will not return 20% after two or three rate cuts. This is where the distinction between fund types starts to matter practically.

A money market fund holds very short-term instruments — T-bills maturing in weeks or months. As each instrument matures and is reinvested, the fund’s yield adjusts to wherever rates are at the time. In a falling rate environment, that means returns steadily compress. The liquidity stays; the yield shrinks.

A fixed-income fund holds longer-duration instruments — government bonds, corporate debt, securities with longer maturities. These funds carry more interest rate risk in normal times, but in a falling rate environment, they can actually appreciate in value. When market interest rates fall, the price of existing bonds rises, generating a capital gain for the fund on top of the coupon income. The trade-off is that fixed-income funds are less liquid and carry more volatility.

What this means for you

If you need liquidity — an emergency buffer, banknotes you might need in the next three to six months — a money market fund remains the right tool. If you have a lump sum you won’t need for 12-24 months, the math is shifting. A three-year fixed CD at 18% locks in today’s rate regardless of what the CBE does next. A variable-rate certificate adjusts with the overnight rate — good if you think rates stay elevated longer than expected, not so much if cuts come faster. A fixed-income fund offers a middle path: more liquid than a CD, potentially benefitting from rate cuts through capital appreciation.