Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority reviewed its recent controls addressing excessive borrowing and fraud at a Cairo ICT 2026 panel. Rehab Taha, assistant to the authority’s chair for nonbank financing, emphasized that behavioral credit scores support lending decisions but do not replace lenders’ responsibility to assess creditworthiness. The measures address risks accompanying consumer financing growth from EGP 8 billion serving 262,000 beneficiaries to about EGP 96 billion serving nearly 12 million beneficiaries over five years.

Consumer finance companies must connect with the Egyptian Credit Bureau, I-Score, to track financing in real time from approval and disbursement through repayment, closure or legal proceedings. This is intended to prevent customers from obtaining multiple facilities beyond their repayment capacity. Providers of consumer financing and financing for micro, small and medium enterprises must also use one time passwords sent to customers’ personal mobile phones during approval, disbursement and use to reduce impersonation and fraud. Behavioral assessments based on alternative data provide additional insight into repayment patterns, including for applicants with limited conventional credit histories. Applicants rejected for credit have the right to know the reasons, request data updates and challenge inaccurate information, rather than face exclusion solely through behavioral scoring.

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