Thank you Hussein Refaie, End of 7 Years Made Golden Age for Suez Canal Bank

Seven historical years representing the golden age of the Suez Canal Bank, This is how we can talk about Hussein Refaie's time as Chairman of the Bank who lead from May 2017 until the end of March 2023, radically changed the bank's performance and its position among Egyptian banks, to convert from a bank that makes financial losses or minor profits, and suffers the greatest distress rate in its loan portfolio to a bank that is always present on the fastest growing lists in Egypt. Thank you to Mr. Hussein Refaie and to all that he gave to Suez Canal Bank to introduce a bank that we pride ourselves that it is Egyptian and under a name that we respect.

And about the radical transformations witnessed by Suez Canal Bank under the leadership of Hussein Refaie, Chairman of the Board of Directors and former Managing Director of the Bank During his leadership, we can first touch on financial indicators, where he led the bank to record profits, Its net profits jumped by 994%, surpassing for the first time in its history EGP 1 bn, registering EGP 2.29 bn in 2023, compared to EGP 209.7 mn in 2016, with an increase of EGP 2.1 bn.

The assets portfolio rose by 227.5%, registering EGP 102.93 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 31.43 bn by the end of 2016, with an increase of EGP 71.5 bn. The bank recorded the fastest annual growth in its portfolio over the past year in five years.

The Bank's total customer loans jumped to EGP 37.1 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 16 bn by the end of 2016, with a growth rate of 131.8% and an increase of EGP 21.1 bn, driven by the significant growth experienced by the retail banking and corporate sectors.

Suez Canal Bank's corporate loans "including corporate and business banking" rose by 113.3%, reaching EGP 33.4 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 15.7 bn by the end of 2016, with an estimated increase of EGP 17.7 bn.

Retail banking sector loans jumped exceptionally, rising to EGP 3.7 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 348.9 mn by the end of 2016, with a record growth of 964% and an increase of EGP 3.4 bn.

It also succeeded in attracting huge segments of depositors to the Bank and earning their confidence through the introduction of products and savings deposits that meet the needs of different customers, resulting in the growth of the customer deposit portfolio by EGP 49.5 bn during the period under analysis, rising to EGP 73.6 bn by the end of 2023, compared to EGP 24.1 bn by the end of 2016, with a growth of 205%.

It also managed to raise the bank's capital to EGP 5 bn in August 2023, in line with the central bank's minimum capital requirements, after it was EGP 2 bn by the end of 2016.

It is worth mentioning that these increases of EGP 3 bn were made from the bank's profits achieved during the period from 2017 to 2022.

At the level of financial safety indicators, the quality of assets was enhanced, with the Bank's capital adequacy ratio jumping to 16.11% by the end of 2023, compared to 11.41% by the end of 2016, exceeding the control limit set by the Central Bank of Egypt in accordance with Basel Accord of 12.5%

The bank also raised its leverage ratio by 6.85% by the end of 2023, compared to 5.26% by the end of 2016, exceeding the central bank's control limit of 3% in accordance with Basel Accord.

Refaie managed to reduce the Bank's distress rate to record levels, falling from 52.43% by the end of 2016, to 9.08% by the end of 2023.

The ratio of loans and facilities classified in the top two grades of internal valuation increased to 90.02% by the end of December 2023, compared to 42.93% by the end of December 2016.

The proportion of loans and facilities portfolio also jumped by 89.68% by the end of 2023, compared to 47.57% by the end of 2016.

During his leadership, Hussein Refaie also worked on the development of the Bank's IT infrastructure, in accordance with the start-up phase of digital services, and achieving financial inclusion by launching a large package of services associated with electronic technology.

The Bank's network components, emergency center, main bank system, control and protection devices were developed and old network devices were replaced. There were replacement and renovation of key server devices, as well as increase of communication devices and lines

The bank spent over EGP 500 mn on infrastructure over the past years, enabling it to make remarkable progress on this file. The most notable achievement of Suez Canal Bank was that it was the second bank to launch a smart branch in Egypt, the first to use the robot in branches.

Among the challenges faced by Hussein Refaie to create an inclusive banking entity was the lack of activity for SMEs. Accordingly, new departments for this activity were established with risk management, as well as the lack of banking retail activity, and therefore; a new Department of Banking Retail and Risk Management was established, and many syndicated loans were arranged among strong alliances in strategic sectors related to development plans.