Commercial International Bank SAE (DFC-2025-COMMERCIALINTE)

Countries
  • Egypt
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Approved
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
U
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Borrower
Commercial International Bank SAE
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Finance
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Loan
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 25.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Loan Amount (USD)
$ 25.00 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 41.67 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Bank Documents
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ DFC website

Updated in EWS Jun 17, 2025

Disclosed by Bank May 6, 2025

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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to bank provided information, the investment involves a loan portfolio guaranty to expand the Guaranteed Party’s lending to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are key drivers of growth in Egypt responsible for 80% of GDP and over 75% of private sector employment. However, this critical segment of the economy faces a financing gap of $39 billion, representing 94% of estimated need with only approximately 20% of SMEs reporting having access to any credit. This challenge is particularly acute for women-owned/led SMEs, which face financial access constraints augmented by societal norms and institutional barriers to growth. The country’s banking sector has limited confidence lending to this sector, driven mainly by limited credit history and the inability of many SMEs to meet collateral requirements.

In response to this challenge, the Project is expected to have a positive development impact in Egypt by supporting an important local commercial lender in expanding its SME lending portfolio. Additionally,
DFC’s support is expected to contribute to the bank’s goal of increasing lending to women-owned/led enterprises to 20% across its portfolio by 2026. Loans issued under the DFC guaranty are expected to have longer tenors than the bank’s current SME portfolio. Given the Project’s characteristics, it is categorized as Impactful per DFC’s Impact Quotient.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.
Financial Intermediary
A financial intermediary is a bank or financial institution that receives funds from a development bank. A financial intermediary then lends these funds to their clients (private actors) in the form of loans, bonds, guarantees and equity shares. Financial intermediaries include insurance, pension and equity funds. The direct financial relationship is between the development bank and the financial intermediary.

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

*Contact information not provided at the time of disclosure*

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

Unlike many other development finance institutions, DFC does not currently have an access to information policy.

Under the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), DFC is obliged to respond to reasonably formulated requests for Agency records. However, DFC may apply exemptions from release to certain types of information and may charge fees in responding to requests. DFC has a designated FOIA officer who is trained in how to respond to requests and implement the law. You can learn more about filing a FOIA request at: https://www.dfc.gov/foia 

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT FINANCE CORPORATION (DFC)

The Office of Accountability is an independent office that addresses complaints about environmental or social issues related to DFC-supported projects. The office provides communities an opportunity to have concerns independently reviewed and addressed. If you submit a complaint to the Office of Accountability, it may assist you by either seeking to address your problems by facilitating a problem solving dialogue between you and those implementing the project and/or investigating whether the DFC complied with its policies to prevent environmental, social, human rights, and labor harms.

You can find more information about the Office of Accountability at: https://www.dfc.gov/who-we-are/office-accountability 

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