Egypt’s Central Bank Allows Local Banks to Issue Digital Currency

According to BlockBeats, on April 23, according to Egyptian media reports, the Central Bank of Egypt announced on the 22nd local time that local banks are allowed to issue digital currency under its supervision for mobile payment services and store it in electronic media. In addition to the issuing bank, other individuals or entities can use digital currency for payment operations. This type of digital currency will be issued in accordance with the rules promulgated by the Central Bank of Egypt, can be converted into Egyptian pounds cash, and is equivalent to the Egyptian pound. In the mobile payment regulations issued by the Central Bank of Egypt, it was explained that the issuance of digital currency is limited to banks under its supervision and should be approved in advance. The regulations also stipulate that banks issuing digital currency must have Egyptian pound deposits with a total value not less than their digital currency. The Central Bank of Egypt also stated that banks authorized to issue digital currency "will manage digital currency records through a system" that will display the value of the issued digital currency, system users and service providers, and monitor digital currency payment orders and their detailed reports, thereby linking the operations of system users with service providers. On March 28th local time, the Central Bank of Egypt issued a statement warning the country's citizens not to engage in cryptocurrency transactions and emphasized that "Egypt can only use official currencies approved by its central bank for transactions."