The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) tops the list as the best bank dealing with treasury bills and bonds

The Ministry of Finance announced the names of the top five banks in dealings in primary and seco...

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) tops the list as the best bank dealing with treasury bills and bonds The Ministry of Finance announced the names of the top five banks in dealings in primary and secondary markets of both treasury bills and bonds during the second half of the fiscal year 2010-2011, standing out among the banks dealing with the 15-bank system of primary dealers in government securities. The Ministry of Finance issued this ranking classification as part of its measures to activate the government securities market and to boost its liquidity as the most important tools and mechanisms to provide the required funding meeting the general budget deficit, according to Finance Minister Momtaz al-Saeed. He further added that the commercial banks will benefit from such classifications to make prominent their competitive role in the Egyptian market in the different fields. In addition, the foreign banks operating in Egypt are very interested in these assessments as evidence of the successful management of the relevant banks. The classification showed that the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) ranked first on three lists as it occupied the place of best dealer in the primary market for treasury bills and bonds as well as topping the list of the best five banks in the secondary market for treasury bonds. As regards the first top five in the primary market for treasury bills the NBE came first followed by Banque Misr, HSBC, the Commercial International Bank (CIB), then in the fifth place the Arab African International Bank. The primary market for Treasury bonds top-five list showed the NBE in the first place, the CIB in second place, followed by Banque Misr, Banque Misr Iran then the Bank of Alexandria. The secondary market for Treasury bills list displayed Citibank in the first place, followed by the NBE, Crédit Agricole, Arab African International Bank then HSBC. The secondary market for Treasury bonds put the NBE in the first place followed by Citibank, the CIB, Crédit Agricole then the HSBC. Moreover, Minister of Finance Counselor for General Debt, Sami Khallaf, said the Ministry of Finance will issue these classifications periodically in an effort to integrate Egypt in the global markets and the most important emerging markets which regularly issue classifications of their major financial market dealers. Making such classifications available, he added, will encourage the Egyptian banks to play a bigger role in the development of the government securities market, which can reflect positively on the trading volumes in the market. This will increase the liquidity of government securities. Khallaf mentioned that the average interest rate for the general debt currently stands at about 12.4% and the average maturity is 1.4 years.   Top major dealers in the primary market of treasury bills in the second half of the fiscal year 2010-2011 Major dealers Total assessment Rank NBE 0.50 1 Banque Misr 1.20 2 HSBC 1.80 3 CIB 1.90 4 Arab African International Bank 2.70 5     Top major dealers in the primary market of treasury bonds in the second half of the fiscal year 2010-2011 Major dealers Total assessment Rank NBE 0.70 1 CIB 1.00 2 Banque Misr 1.50 3 Banque Misr Iran for Development 1.70 4 Bank of Alexandria 2.60 5   Top major dealers in the secondary market of treasury bills in the second half of the fiscal year 2010-2011 Major dealers % share in secondary market Rank Citibank 16.50% 1 NBE 11.76% 2 Crédit Agricole 8.67% 3 Arab African International Bank 6.95% 4 HSBC 6.11% 5   Top major dealers in the secondary market of treasury bonds in the second half of the fiscal year 2010-2011 Major dealers % share in secondary market Rank NBE 27.25% 1 Citibank 16.50% 2 CIB 15.68% 3 Crédit Agricole 13.06% 4 HSBC 10.02% 5   (Source:Ministry of Finance)