The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has announced the activation of the InstaPay application on Wednesday 23 March, which is functioning in tandem with the Instant Payment Network (IPN).
The announcement was held in an official inauguration event that featured Tarek Amer, the CBE Governor, as well as ambassadors of different countries and executives in multinational payment companies.
The application was developed by Egyptian Banks Company, the CBE’s technological arm, under the guidance of its umbrella company.
“The launch of the new Instant Payment Network marks a key milestone on our roadmap for the national payment landscape. Our goal is to ensure the sovereignty of payments in Egypt, promote the National Payments Council’s vision of transforming the society towards less dependency on banknotes, and enabling convenient, secure, and affordable digital financial transactions for all Egyptians,” said Amer.
The new platform aims to enhance Egypt’s emerging digital economy, allowing transactions to be rendered digitally, in an instant, either through bank accounts or a Meeza card.
“InstaPay is an app that allows direct access to all your bank accounts and enables transfers instantly using your mobile device 24/7,” as explained on their official website.
The application is the first of its kind – a payment service provider – to be licensed by the CBE; it also offers its users access to an IPN. The application relies on data and encryption security ensuring the restriction of access to any data between the client and their bank.
“End-to-end encryption for all the above sensitive data is implemented. Thus, the App has no access, nor rights, nor the ability to fetch and/or store such sensitive data, all sensitive data are encrypted between the customer and his bank,” explains the company on its ‘questions and answers’ page.
There are 13 banks currently supporting the application and its IPN: The National Bank of Egypt, Commercial International Bank, EGBank, Arab African International Bank, SAIB, Banque Misr, Banque du Caire, Egyptian Gulf Bank, ALEXBANK, QNB Al Ahli, Arab Bank, and Société Arabe Internationale de Banque.
To register an account, the website instructs you to first download the application on either the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.
To register, you must have an account in one of the aforementioned banks, with your phone number linked to the bank account. Afterwards, you will be asked to create a unique IPN account and an IPN pincode.
The InstaPay application joins the recent wave of fintech companies attempting to revolutionize the industry. Last year, Egyptian startup Telda announced its plans to become Egypt’s first-ever mobile banking application with electronic transfers from one account to another. However, it is yet to officially operate since its announcement.
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