The headlines from this morning

Missed this morning’s edition of EnterpriseAM? Here are the top stories in a nutshell.

• Africa’s own credit rating agency wants its first sovereign ratings out by the end of March 2027, and it’s already in talks with 15 African governments. The African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA) launched in Mauritius last month, with Central Bank of Egypt Governor Hassan Abdalla in the room, and its staff will start by researching countries including Togo, Kenya, Seychelles, Burundi, and Mauritius. Cheaper capital will take longer: it will need broader financing reforms, while better data and a transparent methodology could earn AfCRA a place in the market once it proves its independence;
• The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) expects to close its acquisition of Banque Misr’s UAE branches by the end of November or mid-December. The transaction now has near-final approval from the Central Bank of the UAE, with only commercial registry procedures left before final sign-off. NBE has finished due diligence and valued the branches at a 1.02x book, under terms that leave Banque Misr liable for any obligations that surface within a year of closing;
• Egyptians working abroad sent home USD 13 bn in July-September, up 20.4% y-o-y, taking the total for the first nine months of 2026 to a record USD 38.2 bn. The period turned out far better than Onafriq (a cross-border payments platform) had predicted in June, when it warned that Gulf-based migrant workers were running down their savings and that remittance volumes could collapse by 3Q if the war dragged on. That steady flow is buying Egypt time to fix the weaknesses that remittances keep covering for.