Abdullah Al-Sada, the company’s general manager, told Al-Mal: IPAG aims to increase transfers through its subsidiaries to $3.5 billion annually by 2025.

Abdullah Al-Sada, general director of “IPAG” – the official agent of the international company “Western Union” – said that the volume of its remittance activity reached 1.6 billion dollars by the end of 2021, which was paid to more than 700,000 clients through 2 .7 million exchange transactions.

He added – in statements to “Al-Mal” – that the volume of transfers through “IPAG” is expected to reach $3.5 billion in 2025, compared to $1.65 billion by the end of 2022, resulting in a doubling of the share companies in the Egyptian market in the next three years.

He added that his company managed to achieve significant growth rates in the last period, noting that the total amounts paid to clients in 2018 amounted to 800 million dollars, and at the end of last year this value doubled.

He pointed out that the shareholder structure of the company is 60% in favor of the original shareholder, the Sarhank Group, 15% for the National Bank of Egypt, 15% for Banque Misr and 10% for Banque du Caire, so that the total share of the three banks is 40%, pointing out that is a company created 27 years ago, and during that period it operates through 38 branches.

We are awaiting approval from the Central Bank to provide our services through Banque du Caire branches

He added that with the entry of the National Bank of Egypt and Egypt, the company “IPAG” began to provide its services through 106 branches belonging to two state banks, and with the entry of the Banque du Caire as a shareholder, we continue with the procedures for obtaining the approval of the Central Bank to work as a sub-agency for providing service through Banque du Caire through 200 branches.

He explained that his company is located in the branches of Al-Ahly Bank of Egypt and Egypt through the branch and a representative employee who completes data and documents.

He pointed out that his company is strongly moving towards digital transformation, explaining that it is constantly working to increase investment in technological infrastructure, in order to connect its technological system with banks. Which plays a big role in facilitating customers abroad.

He added that “IPAG” is studying with the Central Bank the launch of an electronic application belonging to it and plans to launch it in the first quarter of 2023, seeking the help of local experts to facilitate the process of transferring money through the company’s branches or through its offices located in banks, and the bank partner in that application is Banque Misr. Through it, it is connected to all banks for transferring amounts to all electronic wallets and bank accounts.

We started providing exchange services and our daily transactions are more than 5 million dollars

In 2022, “IPAG” introduced a new service, which is the provision of exchange services after the approval of the Central Bank, and we started exchange offices for Banque Misr inside “IPAG” branches, because they spend more than $5 million per day for almost 9 thousand customers.

He added that the company started providing service through 10 branches during the past month, and during the current month it aims to complete work in another 13 branches, which will make a total of 23 branches that provide exchange service.

He expected total transfers through the company to reach approximately $1.7 billion by the end of this year, noting that “IPAG” accounts for about 5% of Egyptians’ total remittances, based on the World Bank’s expectation that transfers by Egyptians working abroad will reach $32 billion dollars by the end of this year. .

He stressed that his company’s business growth is expected to reach 7% by the end of the year on an annual basis, which increases the size of Egypt’s income in dollars.

He explained that “IPAG” with the Central Bank of Egypt and the company “Western Union” is studying the possibility of transferring money of individuals abroad through “IPAG” to their accounts in Egyptian banks, so that clients, in addition to allowing withdrawal of money through an electronic application that the company considering starting.

And about the time required to transfer money through “IPAG”, the “gentlemen” indicated that “Western Union” is characterized by the fact that it allows money to be transferred within a few minutes, besides not requiring the user to have a bank account in order to transfer money, especially since about 40% of citizens over the age of 16 do not have bank accounts.

He pointed out that during the Corona pandemic, the volume of transfers through the company increased as a result of the period of closure and suspension of travel, which encouraged many citizens to turn to digital tools, noting that Western Union cooperates with telecommunications companies in the Gulf countries. , enabling clients to transfer money via mobile phone without the need to be present in branches.

He pointed out that Western Union is present in about 200 countries and has about 600,000 branches for providing services in addition to digital services in more than 30 countries.

He said that about 50 percent of the transfers that take place through “IPAG” come via the Gulf countries and America, emphasizing that most of the countries from which transfers come to Egypt are represented in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, America, Qatar and the Emirates.

Regarding the expansion plan of “IPAG”, he explained that Libya accounted for 14% of the total remittances of Egyptians abroad 10 years ago, so our goal in the coming period is to focus on Libya and Iraq in the medium term as a large market for the expansion of the company.

We are also working on increasing the number of service points, and we have agreed with Western Union to launch global campaigns in countries to encourage transfers, especially from East Asian countries and Italy.

Regarding the most important challenges facing the company, he explained that IPAG has the opportunity to expand through a partnership with the 3 largest banks in Egypt (National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr and Banque du Caire); As this expansion and the need for competences represent a challenge, we started restructuring the company in accordance with the expected increase in the volume of activities.

He added that Western Union spends more than $100 million a year to develop the company’s compliance rules, in line with the requirements of the Anti-Terrorism and Money Laundering Unit of the Central Bank of Egypt.

Regarding the company’s contracts with government agencies, Al-Sada said that IPAG is studying cooperation with government agencies that have branches across the governorates of the Republic to facilitate the transfer of money.