The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) welcomed on Sunday a high-level delegation from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) for an official three-day visit focused on cybersecurity.
The visit centred on the work of the CBE’s Cybersecurity Sector and the Egypt Financial Computing Incident Response Team (EG-FinCIRT), which is regarded as a leading regional model in cybersecurity across Africa and the Middle East.
The Kenyan delegation included five specialists from the technical team of the CBK’s Banking Sector Security Operations Centre (BS-SOC). The visit aimed to facilitate knowledge sharing and deepen practical understanding of Egypt’s experience in establishing and operating EG-FinCIRT.
Sherif Hazem, CBE Sub-Governor for Cybersecurity, commented: “The regular visits by African central banks to benefit from Egypt’s expertise highlight the CBE’s leadership in this vital field. As global cyber threats escalate, such collaborations are key to enhancing national capabilities and supporting the adoption of emerging technologies.”
Similarly, Ibrahim Mostafa, Assistant Sub-Governor and Director of EG-FinCIRT, noted: “EG-FinCIRT is a pioneering regional model advancing cybersecurity strategies and coordination with incident response teams at both regional and international levels. This helps strengthen resilience against cyberattacks, which increasingly target the economies of many countries.”
The visit featured discussions on strategies for detecting and responding to security threats, alongside modern approaches for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities and breaches, especially within the FinTech sector. It also covered best practices for ensuring compliance with global cybersecurity standards and frameworks, as well as procedures for licensing and accrediting FinTech applications and technical solutions. These measures aim to support secure digital transformation and reinforce the stability of financial markets locally and regionally.
The Kenyan delegation expressed its keen interest in drawing on the CBE’s expertise to shape and implement its own integrated cybersecurity strategy. This aligns with the CBK’s current efforts to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity framework for Kenya’s financial sector, modelled on Egypt’s experience.
Key elements of this strategy include setting up and running a specialised incident response team dedicated to the banking and financial sector, developing a regulatory cybersecurity framework that is regularly updated, and strengthening processes to review security measures in applications and digital systems before granting approval for their use.
