The Assets and Liabilities Committees (ALCO), which are in charge of setting interest levels in banks, will start Sunday to adjust the interest rates on their savings and loan products following the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE)’s decision to raise interest rates by 2% at once last Thursday evening. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of CBE decided to increase the basic interest rates by 2%, making them 21.25% for deposits, 22.25% for lending, and 21.75% for the credit and discount rates and the main operation of CBE. As an immediate reaction in the market, interest rates on variable-return certificates and some loan products linked to the interest rates rose by 2%. There are several variable-return savings certificates in the Egyptian market, such as the National Bank of Egypt (NBE)’s “platinum” certificate and Banque Misr’s “Al-Qimma” certificate, as well as many variable-return loan products. The Ministry of Finance plans to issue 25 auctions for treasury bills and bonds worth EGP 540.25bn in February, including 16 bond auctions worth EGP 528bn and nine bond auctions worth EGP 12.25bn.
