As Egypt accelerates its shift toward a cashless economy, Dr. Reda Helal, Group Managing Director of Process­ing Business – Africa at Network In­ternational, offers a regional perspective on building a truly inclusive and digitally enabled financial system.

With a career spanning over 25 years in pay­ments and banking across Africa, the Middle East, and North America, Dr. Helal shares in­sights on Egypt’s rapid digital transformation, the evolving role of fintechs, and how Network International is helping shape a more inclusive, secure, and efficient payments ecosystem - not only in Egypt, but across the continent.

From regulatory shifts to innovation at scale, he unpacks what’s next for financial services in a digitally driven economy. 

Does the risk of delaying the transition to digital payments outweigh the challenges for banks and financial institutions in Egypt?

Dr. Reda Helal, Group Managing Director of Process­ing Business – Africa at Network In­ternational

Africa presents diverse dynamics influencing the rate of financial inclusion in each country, with varying levels of maturity.

Despite progress, the continent remains large­ly underbanked—only 49% of adults in Sub-Sa­haran Africa hold a bank account, a figure that has doubled since 2011 but still falls short of the global average of 76%. Significant variation in account ownership persists across the continent, ranging from 6% in South Sudan to 91% in Mau­ritius.

Egypt has seen exponential growth in finan­cial inclusion over the past decade, largely due to the strong efforts of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and local financial institutions.

Among financial institutions, there are clear frontrunners as well as those still lagging in the shift to digital payments.

In Egypt, the CBE has implemented several initiatives aimed at improving the digital pay­ments ecosystem. These efforts include enhanc­ing user experience, integrating banks, financial institutions, fintechs, and mobile money provid­ers, as well as leveraging partnerships and inno­vative technologies to offer secure, efficient, and inclusive financial services.

Network International’s stated purpose is to help economies and businesses grow by sim­plifying payments and commerce. How is this being realized in practice, particularly in Egypt?

At Network International, our purpose is to help economies and businesses grow by simpli­fying payments and commerce; a commitment that drives our work in unlocking Egypt’s eco­nomic potential.

Our investments align with Egypt’s financial inclusion and digital transformation goals, sup­porting the shift from cash to digital as a key driver of efficient commerce and GDP growth. We focus on both sides of the payments equa­tion: issuing for consumers and acceptance for businesses.

We provide scalable, cost-effective solutions for banks, fintechs, mobile operators, and mer­chants, helping them boost revenue and profit­ability. Our localized approach includes partner­ships like Meeza, enabling customers to issue and accept domestic cards seamlessly.

To stay ahead of evolving needs, we regularly engage with clients and are hosting a Payments Innovation Roadshow across eight countries this year to showcase new solutions and trends.

Following our acquisition of DPO, we’ve ac­celerated investments across Africa, including AI- and machine learning-powered tools that en­hance security and customer experience.

Looking forward, we’re focused on scale and leadership across Africa. With over 100 APIs and rapid onboarding processes, we’re making it easier than ever for clients to go live and grow with us.

Are more financial institutions now ready and willing to go digital?

The pandemic significantly accelerated Egypt’s shift toward digital payments, revealing the limita­tions of cash-based systems and emphasizing the need for accessible digital financial solutions. In response, many financial institutions embraced digital transformation, upgrading platforms like mobile apps, internet banking, and USSD ser­vices. These now offer features such as biometric login, instant payments, and bill settlement to meet growing customer expectations.

Banks have also expanded their digital offer­ings to include instant loans, savings, fund trans­fers, and investment products — all accessible via mobile or online channels. Some introduced virtual banking, enabling customers to interact with representatives through video calls, reduc­ing branch visits.

Digital innovation has advanced financial in­clusion, with banks partnering mobile money providers to reach unbanked and underbanked populations. Simplified digital KYC processes have also made remote account opening pos­sible.

Collaborations with fintechs are rising, help­ing banks integrate technologies like AI and machine learning to enhance service personal­ization and efficiency. Meanwhile, contactless payments via QR codes and NFC are becoming increasingly common, supporting safer, faster transactions.

Overall, Egypt’s financial sector is showing strong momentum toward digitalization, with clear readiness and commitment from institu­tions to invest in the tools and partnerships needed for a more digital, inclusive economy.

Mobile operators, fintechs and neo-banks to­gether with conventional banks are all in the payments mix. How easy or difficult is it to deal with each grouping?

We would first highlight that there are equally important participants in the payments mix that often go unmentioned — regulators and pay­ment schemes.

These players are critical to the ecosystem, and our experienced team, along with our ro­bust technology, enables us to add value across all stakeholder groups.

Mobile operators

One key advantage of working with mobile op­erators is their large customer base, particularly in regions with low banking penetration. Many are keen to expand their service offerings and see strong potential in leveraging our advanced payment services to do so.

Fintechs

Fintechs offer notable benefits, particularly their speed and agility; they are often quick to adopt new technologies from Network Interna­tional and respond rapidly to market demands. However, they typically operate within fast-evolv­ing regulatory environments, which can be com­plex and require careful navigation.

Neo-banks

Neo-banks bring strong digital integration capabilities, as they are built to be digital-first. This makes it easier to integrate them into our payments platform. At the same time, many neo-banks are still in the process of establishing mar­ket share and building customer trust.

Conventional banks

Conventional banks have several advantages, including well-established systems and exten­sive regulatory expertise, making integration relatively smooth and simplifying compliance-related processes. Their broad range of financial services also provides a strong foundation for di­verse payment processing needs.

That said, one of the main challenges is that many of these institutions continue to operate on legacy or outdated infrastructure, which can complicate integration efforts and slow down in­novation.

How does Network address the threat of finan­cial crimes?

Network provides a comprehensive enter­prise fraud management solution for a wide cli­ent base—from fintechs to large multinational banks—addressing the growing complexity of financial crimes and regulatory demands. On-premises fraud solutions are often costly and resource-intensive, requiring significant invest­ment in technology, infrastructure, skilled per­sonnel, and continuous innovation.

To simplify this, Network offers FICO Falcon Fraud Manager as a hosted solution to banks across the MEA region. This combines FICO’s advanced analytics with Network’s operational expertise, enabling banks to integrate fraud management across selected channels, scale as needed, and align with regulatory priorities.

Network manages the anti-fraud application, infrastructure, and system integrations, while also providing:

• Continuous analytics and rule management,

• 24/7/365 fraud monitoring by a dedicated investigation team.

The results speak for themselves. In 2022, Network helped clients reduce their Fraud Basis Points (FBPs) by 82%, while increasing fraud de­tection rates by 25%. The Falcon solution is now integrated with 40+ clients who have outsourced their payment services to us and use the platform for fraud prevention-as-a-service.

Today, Falcon is live for over 20 million cus­tomers, processing more than 180 million trans­actions and USD 18 billion in card, wallet, and account payments across the MEA region.

Notably, with a fraud review rate of just 1.13%, Network’s platform saved clients a total of USD 9.7 million in fraud losses as of October 2023 — delivering an impressive 7.45x return on invest­ment.

How do you see the next decade for both Net­work as well as Africa?

Over the next decade, Network International is focused on accelerating Africa’s digital pay­ment transformation, particularly in Egypt. The company is investing in technology, talent, and localized solutions to support financial inclusion and the shift from cash to digital. Its client base now includes banks, fintechs, and mobile opera­tors, with innovations like “Card in a Box” and companion cards driving growth.

Network is expanding low-cost digital accep­tance for small merchants, enhancing value-added services, and leveraging its N-Genius™ platform across 26 African countries. In Egypt, it has introduced direct-to-merchant services and is actively supporting local processing require­ments in line with regulatory needs, including collaborations in markets like Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.

The company also plays a key role in the evo­lution of domestic payment schemes such as Meeza in Egypt. Indeed, Network supports the rollout of real-time payment infrastructure, with high volumes already being seen in Egypt and other economies across Africa.

Looking ahead, sustainability and B2B pay­ment digitization will gain prominence, with in­novations like virtual cards and digital receipts improving transparency, efficiency, and environ­mental impact.