The problem
In a cash-dominated economy, paying utility bills, topping up phones, or settling fees meant queues, cash handling, and no receipts — exclusionary for anyone far from a bank branch.
Why it worked
Fawry recruited hundreds of thousands of small retailers as payment agents: customers hand cash to a shopkeeper, the shopkeeper settles digitally through Fawry. That physical on-ramp scaled to 29M+ monthly users and 250+ e-payment services, carrying the company to an EGX listing in August 2019 — Egypt’s first fintech IPO — and later into microfinance via Fawry MSME Finance.
Challenges
As a listed company every quarter is judged; bank-led wallets (InstaPay and others) and telecom money compete for the same transactions; and newer lending products add credit risk to a transaction-fee business.
Funding
- Raised: MISSING (public company; historical private raises undisclosed in citable sources).
- Valuation: $366M market cap at 2019 IPO (WeeTracker). Current market cap: MISSING.
Latest — September 2026
On 13 August 2026 Fawry reported myFawry app transactions reached EGP 48 billion in H1 2026, up 68.5% year-on-year from EGP 28.5 billion, with cumulative downloads up 37.2% to 28 million on new retail investment products (EGX30, gold-backed and Sharia-compliant funds). On 14 September 2026 Fawry partnered with DMS to integrate Fawry Business POS solutions directly with DMS’s medical management system for healthcare payments.