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Banking and Finance Committee
Automated Payroll Distribution & Staff Benefits - View presentation Mohamed Ashmawy, Senior general manager, branches, Commercial International Bank (CIB), and Yehia El Batrawi, Head of Individual Banking, National Societe' Generale Bank (NSGB), spoke on June 19 about the advantages of automated payroll distribution. Ashmawy's said that banks must offer a full range of services to accommodate all the customer's needs, adding that customers have become more knowledgeable and demanding, while new entrants to the market have reduce profit margins and created excess capacity. Technological advances are also pressuring banks to change. Most banks, he said, have reacted with cost-control strategies,
business re-engineering, diversification of marketing channels and
customer-focused banking services, along with upgraded technology.
In addition to Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), banks are adopting All these systems can make any company's payroll system more efficient, Ashmawy said. El Batrawi described payroll banking services in more detail, explaining the advantages of making salary payments by debiting the company account and crediting the employees' accounts automatically. While the HR department can keep tighter control of the monthly payment process, employees can likewise benefit from greater flexibility in their choice of branches, he said. And while processing time is faster, the possibility of human error is eliminated, which in turn reduces insurance costs. NSGB would install a payroll system and train the company's HR staff to use it, as well as simplifying the procedures for opening employees' accounts, El Batrawi said. For the economy as a whole, he added, the shift to a cashless society would be accompanies by greater awareness of banking, increased deposits and lending, and improved liquidity. Questions from the audience focused on the need to standardize date forms and transaction procedures between different banks; credit card penetration in different countries; and security issues. Ex-Im Bank: Programs and Opportunities J. Joe Grandmaison, Director and Member of the Board at the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), spoke on May 27 at the Cairo Marriott Hotel about Ex-Im Bank's approach to export financing and the opportunities available to Egyptian exporters. The meeting provided a chance to explore ways that Ex-Im Bank could help expand the commercial relationship between the Egypt and the US. The bank, which serves as the United States' official export credit agency, is an independent federal government agency that helps finance the sale of US exports, primarily to emerging markets, through loans, guarantees and export credit insurance. "Emerging markets are expected to be major economic hubs in the 21st century," Grandmaison said. In Egypt, Ex-Im Bank is most interested in natural-gas projects and tourism development. Grandmaison outlined bank's services, as well as the rules and terms for taking its loans. "Information Security Systems" Moustafa Sarhank president of Internet Security Systems, Sherif El Kassas, associate director of the Center for Academic Computing at the American University in Cairo, and Yasser El Mahmoudy, resident vice president at the Head Technology Unit, Citibank, spoke on February 27 about securing information systems. "Banks have two products, money and trust," El Mahmoudy said. "Trust is all about security. As the traditional bank environment evolves to ‘anytime, anywhere,’ information security is essential in maintaining that trust." But maintaining security is becoming more difficult. Hackers, El Mahmoudy said, are working all the time to break into computer security systems. Sarhank stressed that "security is an integral part of our daily lives,” adding that security can be achieved through an examination of major security risk factors. For example, rapid growth of systems puts companies at risk by creating new gaps in security and technology. El Kassas said that the frequency of external attacks is increasing dramatically. Showing statistics projecting the number of intruders able to carry out attacks, he said that the number of attacks by hackers against businesses was increasing exponentially. The three agreed that technology is vulnerable to intrusion, and this vulnerability is increased by a lack of legislation in cyberspace, along with the fact that users of modern applications often have limited knowledge on how these systems work. The meeting was the first in the “Banking on Technology” series, a set of joint panel discussions and seminars organized jointly by AmCham Egypt’s Information Technology and Banking & Finance Committees. Each session will bring bankers, technology providers and specialists together to discuss their experiences and views on a certain theme pertaining to interaction between business and technology. All your business financial needs answered - January 14 Sheirf Hassan, president of the US based A&M International Corp., spoke on January 14 about how to address business financial needs, delving into the various methods of financing that are available, such as debt, equity, leasing, lease purchases, venture capital and import-export financing. He went on to discuss some of the major financial instruments that are used currently, including bank guarantees, stand-by letters of credit, medium-term notes, corporate guarantees, promissory notes, certificates of deposit, and treasury bills. As for the financing of megaprojects, Hassan said this was usually done by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Multi-Lateral Insurance Guarantee Agency or the IMF. He also touched on money laundering, due-diligence procedures, trading on the Internet and, finally, the prospects for obtaining financing in Egypt for ventures in the tourism and petroleum industries. |
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