• Also takes part in the MENA Leaders Summit on Financial Health and the Arab Monetary Fund's golden jubilee celebrations in Abu Dhabi

Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Hassan Abdalla took part in the 50th annual meeting of the Council of Governors of Arab Central Banks and Monetary Authorities, hosted by the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the day before yesterday. The meeting was attended by representatives of the World Bank Group and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as policymakers and financial experts from the region and beyond. The governor also took part in the MENA Leaders Summit on Financial Health and in the celebrations marking the Arab Monetary Fund's golden jubilee, 50 years since its founding.

The council reviewed the items on its agenda, and the meeting "discussed and presented the progress made in implementing the activities of the inclusive instant payments programme in the Arab region". The governor said the region is undergoing a rapid shift towards digital payments, reflected in the launch and development of several instant payment systems, including InstaPay in Egypt, sarie in Saudi Arabia and Aani in the United Arab Emirates, underlining the importance of inclusive instant payment programmes, whose use is expanding across the Arab region.

Abdalla also highlighted the strong growth of Egypt's Instant Payment Network (IPN), which had about 22 million registered customers at the end of the second quarter of 2026 and a total of about 1.47 billion transactions worth about EGP 4.33 trillion. The governor stressed the importance of implementing instant payment programmes in line with each country's needs and priorities and the maturity of its payment ecosystem, adding that the next phase could focus on 3 main pillars: making instant payment services more inclusive, expanding use cases through instant payment systems, and supporting regional integration and developing cross-border payments.

Speaking at a high-level workshop titled "Macroeconomic Resilience Amid Geopolitical Turbulence", CBE Governor Hassan Abdalla stressed the importance of preserving central bank independence and credibility and of coordinating fiscal and monetary policy. He noted that coordination cannot succeed in one direction only, and that fiscal and monetary policy reinforce each other, especially amid rising global uncertainty.

At the invitation of the Governor of the Central Bank of the UAE, the governor attended the MENA Leaders Summit on Financial Health, organised by the Central Bank of the UAE in cooperation with the World Bank Group, the Office of the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Financial Health (UNSGSA) and the Arab Monetary Fund.