Restrictions by Egypt’s central bank raise fear of Lebanon like crisis

Restrictions by Egypt’s central bank raise fear of Lebanon like crisis

By God, I am not a beggar. I am an Egyptian with a withdrawal limit of $100 a month on my card. I just need to pay the bus fare to get to the airport to leave.”

With this tweet, an Egyptian summed up the situation he reached after major Egyptian banks reduced the limits for withdrawals and purchases via electronic payment cards outside the country.

The decision came after the Central Bank's statement, in which it indicated that bank customers should be notified that it is forbidden to misuse credit cards.

This happened after the use of cards in the middle of last week amounted to more than 55 million dollars in one day, an increase estimated at more than five times over the daily average in the previous quarter of last year.

But why did the Central Bank of Egypt resort to this measure?

Observers believe that the decision was taken to limit the bleeding of the dollar outside the country and to put an end to speculation with it by using credit cards abroad to buy the dollar according to what is known as the bank rate and then sell it in the country according to the parallel market price.

The Central Bank