Enhancement of Financial Inclusion and Fintech: Opportunities and challenges A Presentation of Egypt's Experience in Financial Inclusion

Promoting financial inclusion has become one of the most important goals of countries to achieve their renaissance and financial and economic stability, as a real way to invite all segments of society to enter under the umbrella of banking care and support, especially groups that are financially excluded from access to financial services. Rather, this target has become one of the priorities of countries' strategies to achieve sustainable development, including Egypt. The entry of financial technology, through various financial and non-financial institutions, from the crescent of the use of mobile phone technologies and the Internet, had positive effects on the expansion of access to these services easily and at the lowest costs.

Despite the monitoring of many obstacles and challenges facing the spread of financial inclusion, the data of the Global Financial Inclusion Index for the year 2017 shows a remarkable development in the base of owners of bank accounts and mobile phone wallets compared to the years 2011 and 2014, which reflects the fact of interest in promoting and activating strategies of Financial inclusion, especially in developing countries, through the interaction of individuals and companies and their increasing demand for one or more of the financial services provided.

Egypt was not isolated from this trend. The political leadership was keen to direct the banking sector to work to support and enhance financial inclusion in Egypt by offering many initiatives and taking more serious steps to achieve this goal by taking advantage of the available opportunities and trying to overcome existing obstacles and challenges, which represented effective reasons for the financial exclusion of various segments of Egyptian society.