Egypt's largest e-payment network receives massive international investment

Dec 17, 2015 Fawry, an Egyptian tech company which allows customers make payments through service points across the country, recently got a big-money injection by a consortium of three international financial investors.

With fifty thousand service points across Egypt already, the $100 million investment will enable the company expand its operation across the region.

Fawry, which translate to “Immediate” in Arabic, allows customers to pay their bills through service points in small grocery shops, pharmacies, stationers and post-offices. The system also serves as an intermediary, which alerts customers via email or text message when a bill is due and how much needs to be paid.

Commenting on the growth of the company, Ashraf Sabry, CEO of Fawry said:

“We started off with very little transactions. We used to celebrate when we marked 10 000 transactions per month. Today we complete one million three hundred thousand transactions per day this equates to approximately 40 million transaction per month,”

Following its impressive track record, the company’s shares were acquired by the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund, Helios International Partners and the MENA Long Term Value Fund.

Sabry went to explain that the investors’ goals are in line with the company’s long term plans.

“We think this is a smart investment. It has a financial cover and is long term, not short term. It has an interest in the markets that we work in and is familiar with the markets we work in. It is placing us in a position where we can embark locally and even regionally… “We have a chance to expand regionally and increase our internal activity. We are still scratching the surface and there are many fields for this service. We are noticing that the country is involved with the small and medium enterprises. These are things we did not experience 2-3 years ago. I think that we have internal and external opportunities. Our main concern is to expand internally however we are still keeping an eye on opportunities abroad”

While singing the praise of the company, Sabry Abdallah, a Fawry customer said the platform has helped him work around his personal challenges.

“It helps me because I do not know how to read or write. So I just tell him my request and he sends it using [the device] immediately,”

Darwish Mostafa, another customer said:

“It’s fast and people can use it to send phone minutes, pay a bill, pay the internet. It has many advantages. They can book a plane ticket and tickets for a theme park,”