NBE gets preliminary nod from CBUAE to acquire Banque Misr’s UAE branches

Good morning, ladies and gents. Three stories we’re unpacking today: InstaPay is getting a Pan-African link, the IMF said Egypt’s economy held up under pressure, and MSMEs are getting a fresh line of credit.

The new InstaPay link will let Egyptian traders settle with African counterparts in local currencies rather than relying on USD. Will it break dependence on the greenback? Probably not, but it’ll cut costs and save time and make it easier for SMEs to handle cross-border trade.

We’ve received a positive report card from the IMF, despite continued war-related disruptions. A flexible exchange rate, swift policy responses, and comfy FX reserves helped absorb the shock, but the coast isn’t completely clear. Some key vulnerabilities remain, which we dig into below.

Last but not least, our friends at EFG Holding are getting their first direct loan from the EBRD aimed at MSMEs outside of major cities. EBRD has been lending to EFG’s subsidiaries for years, but this is the first line coming to the holding company itself.

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Cairo Food Week’s Hoda El-Sherif on stories, flavors, and community: Is Egyptian food having a moment? And more importantly, is our cuisine finally claiming its seat at the global table?

Hoda El-Sherif says, “It’s coming.”

Hoda is the co-founder and CEO of Flavor Republic, and the force behind Cairo Food Week, kicking off its fourth edition on 24 September.

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Delighted to welcome Hesham Mahran, CEO and managing director of Orange Egypt, as a guest speaker at the 2026 EnterpriseAM Egypt Forum — the AI edition.

Appointed in August 2025, Mahran brings more than 27 years of experience across telecommunications, ICT, and digital transformation. As a long-standing Orange Egypt leader, he previously served as Chief Business Officer, driving the company’s expansion into cloud, cybersecurity, IoT, and enterprise connectivity. Under his leadership, Orange Egypt has become a key partner in Egypt’s digital transformation agenda, including “Ask Mariam,” Egypt’s first AI-powered airport assistant at Cairo International Airport. He has also been closely tied to national infrastructure projects and smart city development, including the New Administrative Capital Data Center.

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Better handled at home

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) secured preliminary approval from the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) to acquire Banque Misr’s branches in the Emirates, the two state-owned lenders said in a joint statement (pdf). The banks called it a preliminary agreement to integrate their overseas banking presence into a single operation under UAE rules.

IN CONTEXT- Those are the same branches the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed on 28 August to cut off from correspondent banking access to American institutions, though the decision is not yet finalized and a 30-day public comment window is still open. The US regulator alleges the branches moved some USD 1.8 bn between January 2024 and June 2026 for 103 companies it links to Iranian shadow-banking networks. The proposed measure targets only the UAE branches. Banque Misr’s Egypt business and other overseas operations are not affected, the Central Bank of Egypt said at the time. The CBUAE launched its own investigation of the branches, looking at the same period covered by the US allegations.

Why it matters: The statement makes no reference to the US measure, though the transfer looks like a way out of it. Moving the branches to NBE offers a regulatory route to dealing with the FinCEN proposal and is “possibly the only one available right now,” banking analyst Hany Abou El Fotouh tells EnterpriseAM. He says it’s hard to see the move happening without prior coordination between the two central banks. “Customer rights and obligations would move with the branches to NBE, leaving it responsible for compliance going forward,” he adds.

“A purely political solution” is how Motaz El Dreny, founding partner of Dreny & Co., describes the acquisition. Without it, Banque Misr would have exited the UAE entirely, leaving no Egyptian banking presence there. He says the acquisition was likely proposed by the UAE side itself and that NBE was chosen “because it is the only bank capable of the acquisition, based on the unity of ownership” — both are fully state-owned.

The US Federal Reserve was likely briefed on the solutions under consideration, El Dreny says, to “confirm whether this solution achieves its purpose, which is lifting the sanctions.” He stops short of declaring the sanctions will be dropped but says “logic and reason indicate this step would not have been taken unless it was among the proposed solutions that would effectively lead to lifting the sanctions.” The speed of the CBUAE’s preliminary approval signals the urgency of presenting this to the Fed for final clearance, he argues.

Whether the move makes sense for NBE is another question. The banks have put no price, timeline, or branch count on the transaction, and Abou El Fotouh says the regulatory costs of taking on an operation under scrutiny could outweigh the return. With both lenders wholly state-owned, he sees it as moving assets from one state pocket to another, with the earnings landing in the state budget either way.

More to go around

Misr Life Ins. could have 5 bn shares on its register by the time it floats, up from 500 mn today. Last Thursday, the company’s board approved a 10-for-1 split that cuts nominal value to EGP 1 from 10 while leaving issued capital untouched at EGP 5 bn, according to a bourse filing (pdf) dated 21 September. That puts issued capital at half the EGP 10 bn authorized ceiling set by Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) Resolution No. 363 in February. The board also authorized the chairman to issue the call for an extraordinary general assembly within a week of the disclosure hitting the EGX screen.

What this could mean: The disclosure does not mention retail or the stake on offer, but expanding the share count before pricing leaves room for a broader retail offering in a market where individual investors drive the bulk of daily turnover.

ICYMI- Misr Life Ins. has been temporarily listed on the EGX since March but is not yet trading. EFG Hermes was tapped in May to manage the sale of up to 20% of the company. A fair value study was due by end-September, with FRA sign-off the next step before the government sets the final stake and timetable.

ATMs, meet the tax man

The Finance Ministry settled with the Federation of Egyptian Banks how bank ATMs are treated under the property tax, ending years of disputes with several banks, a government official and a banking source at the federation tell EnterpriseAM. The Tax Authority found banks were applying the Real Estate Tax Law inconsistently to their machines.

Bank premises were never the argument — they are taxable. The dispute was over the ATMs, and whether machines scattered across the country count as fixed assets the bank owns. The agreement lands on treating an ATM as movable real estate property, making it taxable as such. The new instructions aim to prevent repeat disputes and eliminate tax rulings that could be vulnerable to regulatory challenge, the sources say.

Three cases now decide liability, under instructions EnterpriseAM has seen:

• Machines inside bank buildings are exempt to avoid double taxation, since the building is already taxed;
• Machines placed in a building or property for a fee are taxable whether or not tax is due on the property itself or its shopfronts;
• Standalone machines are taxed as independent assets.

The clock explains the timing: Banks have until 30 September to register and claim the tax discount under the facilitations package, which runs to a 10% deduction on non-residential property for filing on time. Law 3 of 2026, which amends the 2008 law, took effect on 3 April and also gave taxpayers six months to pay outstanding property tax and qualify for a waiver of late-payment charges, and allows settlement of disputes before appeal committees or the courts at any stage by paying 70% of the disputed amount. Tax owed on buildings the RTA never inventoried or recorded is wiped for every period before 3 April, provided the owner files within a year of that date.

What’s next: A large number of requests have gone in to push the registration deadline to the end of the year, the government source tells us. The same exercise is coming for telecom towers and oil fields — survey, register, update the data, and collect — with the same facilitations and a freeze on property tax disputes, our sources say. The ministry wants around EGP 18 bn in property tax this fiscal year, up from EGP 3.2 bn in FY 2025/26.

IN CONTEXT- The Finance Ministry has been on a property tax expansion drive all year, deploying field committees to inventory North Coast resorts. The ministry’s November 2025 inventory plan already flagged cell towers, electricity stations, and wastewater facilities for inclusion.

LNG to close out 2026

The Oil Ministry aims to secure roughly 35 LNG deliveries for 4Q 2026 via a flexible import plan, Al Borsa reports, citing unnamed sources. The import mechanism adjusts contracted volumes based on local output and demand to address sudden energy fluctuations. While the sources did not specify where the cargoes would come from, they said that Egypt has recently prioritized US gas imports to leverage flexible delivery schedules and favorable payment terms that ease foreign currency pressure.

A trend of great import: Plummeting domestic gas production — down roughly 37% from 2023 to 2026 — forced Egypt to rely on more expensive LNG imports, driving a 36% y-o-y import surge in 1Q 2026. Securing medium-term LNG supplies helps Egypt reduce reliance on the spot market amid instability from the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine.

PSA-

WEATHER- It’s another kind of summer day in Cairo today, with a high of 32°C and a low of 23°C, according to our favorite weather app.

It’s the same temperature in Alexandria, with a high of 32°C and a low of 22°C.

The big story abroad

The UN General Assembly meeting in New York has unsurprisingly dominated headlines. A key development was a three-hour meeting between US officials and Iranian envoys, which US President Donald Trump characterized as productive. This was the first direct US-Iran meeting since June, reviving hopes of a diplomatic resolution, despite threats by Trump to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic.

AI war spawns modestly priced models: Leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI launched more affordable AI models yesterday, responding to rising pressure from budget-friendly, open-weight rivals. OpenAI introduced the GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna — models with a 50% API price cut compared to GPT-5.6 — while Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5, offering a more token-efficient model that costs roughly 40% less to run than Opus 5.

New startup lands in AI space: San Francisco-based data startup Snorkel AI has secured USD 350 mn in new funding at a USD 3.5 bn valuation, driven by surging demand from frontier AI labs for complex training data and simulation environments. Snorkel's new agentic data platform pairs human experts with thousands of AI agents to automate dataset creation and quality control for frontier labs.

*** It’s Hardhat day — your weekly briefing of all things infrastructure in Egypt: EnterpriseAM’s industry vertical focuses each Wednesday on infrastructure, covering everything from energy, water, transportation, and urban development, as well as social infrastructure such as health and education.

In today’s issue: We unpack whether the rate of real estate buyers reselling contracts should raise concerns, and why the FRA is reminding buyers to read their contracts