The Egypt Financial Regulatory Authority, in remarks by its chair Mohamed Farid at the Egypt VC Summit 2025, set out a package of regulatory measures to support fintech and innovation in non-banking financial activities, including lowering entry capital requirements for fintech startups, enabling robo-advisory services, establishing SPAC listing and trading controls, and launching a regulatory sandbox. Minimum capital for fintech startups undertaking non-banking finance activities has been set at EGP 15 million, down from EGP 75 million, while mortgage finance remains subject to a higher EGP 100 million minimum. The SPAC framework requires a SPAC seeking temporary listing on the Egyptian Exchange to have issued and paid-up capital of at least EGP 10 million and to increase capital in cash to EGP 100 million within three months of listing; the authority also approved the first venture-capital SPAC focused on acquiring firms in non-banking financial services and fintech, including payments platforms. The authority also issued rules for a Robo-Advisor for Investment program, allowing portfolio formation and management firms to provide automated investment advice, portfolio construction, management and rebalancing using artificial intelligence algorithms, and updated startup valuation methodologies to better reflect startup business models, including pre-revenue stages. The regulatory sandbox for non-banking financial activities is open to regulated entities using fintech and to firms seeking registration or registered in the fintech outsourcing register to test innovative fintech applications, including related business models. Farid invited startups and entrepreneurs in non-banking financial services to use the sandbox to develop their models.

Original source View in tracker