An official banking source told the Egyptian Middle East News Agency, that Egyptian Central Bank He issued instructions to banks that include excluding categories from recent decisions related to providing foreign currency to customers outside the country.
The Central Bank of Egypt directed banks to procure foreign exchange and open the limits of credit cards and direct debit cards for needs in foreign currency for the purposes of education and treatment without maximum limits, upon request by the customer for those uses, and to provide supporting documents for that.
He also notified the banks to open the limits of credit cards and direct debit cards for customers who traveled before the date of the decision, December 22, 2022, so that the customer can obtain his necessary needs of foreign currency, upon the customer’s request.
He indicated, according to a statement, that the Central Bank confirmed that there are no usage limits for customers who have accounts in foreign currency or credit cards whose uses are paid from their accounts in foreign currency.
A few days ago, the Central Bank of Egypt called on banks operating in the Egyptian market to notify customers by any means of communication that it is forbidden to misuse credit cards and direct debit cards, especially for customers who do not leave the country.
He explained that this comes within the framework of what is observed of the use of some credit cards and direct debit cards in operations outside Egypt, despite the presence of customers holding these cards inside the country.
The Central Bank of Egypt has prohibited the request to procure currency for purposes of traveling abroad without leaving the country, and banks must review a sample of the uses of these cards that took place outside the country, as well as requests to procure currency for travel purposes since the first of December 2022.
He stressed that in the event that the bank notices the existence of increasingly frequent uses that are contrary to the nature of the customer’s uses and that indicates suspicion of the customer’s misuse of the card or the currency that has been procured, especially in the event that there are indications that the customer has not left the country, then the bank must inform the central administration to collect Credit risks in the Central Bank with complete data on these customers, and any other cases that appear in such a way as of its date on an ongoing basis, so that the Central Bank can take the necessary measures with the concerned authorities to verify whether the customer has traveled or not.
And he mentioned that in the event that it is verified that the customer has not traveled or misused the cards, the bank will be directed to stop dealing on the card and inform the customer of that, and inform the Egyptian Credit Bureau “i-Score” to take the necessary measures in this regard.