Customer Centricity: The Road to Financial Inclusion The Case of the Commercial International Bank (CIB) in Egypt

Abstract

The World bank defines Financial Inclusion as a means for individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way. Access to a transaction account is a first step toward broader financial inclusion since it allows people to store money and send and receive payments. A transaction account can also serve as a gateway to other financial services, which is why ensuring that people worldwide can have access to a transaction account is the focus of the World Bank Group’s Universal Financial Access 2020 initiative. Financial access facilitates day-to-day living, and helps families and businesses plan for everything from long-term goals to unexpected emergencies. As accountholders, people are more likely to use other financial services, such as credit and insurance, to start and expand businesses, invest in education or health, manage risk, and weather financial shocks, which can improve the overall quality of their lives. This case sheds the light on the Commercial International Bank; CIB, one of the top Egyptian banks, its history, its financial market endeavors specifically focusing on how the bank leveraged on an existing technology to close gaps that hurdles back financial inclusion in Egypt. The case begins with a setup explaining how utilizing ACH, automatic clearing house technology, first came into focus then moves on to give a background information about CIB, its current position in the market. Afterwards, the case goes on to explain why financial inclusion is important not only on a national level but also internationally finally focusing on how CIB adopted ACH technology and what results it helped generate. With a population of over 90 million and after an uprising that put a lot of challenges on the economic situation of the country. Egyptians look forward to intuitions and organization like CIB to help them rise up not only to a challenging present but to a promising future.