EFG Hermes E : Corp-Solutions Partners With valU to Provide Merchants with Immediate Access to Financing

​Cairo, 4 February 2021

EFG Hermes, the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets (FEM), announced today the launch of a new program between its NBFI subsidiaries valU, a leading technology solutions provider, and EFG Hermes Corp-Solutions, the Firm's factoring and leasing arm. The collaboration will provide valU merchants with immediate access to factoring services, affording them opportunities to increase their liquidity, grow their business, and meet their strategic objectives.

The partnership is available to merchants who have worked with valU for over one year, offering eligible partners immediate access to liquidity with a pre-approved limit ranging from EGP 50,000 to EGP 10 million. The company will utilize credit profiles for the merchants calculated by valU's artificial intelligence modules and algorithms to set the limits and provide approvals in a single day.

'We are extremely proud to announce this new partnership, which marks an important stride in enhancing our operational synergies at the group level while promoting cross-selling and growth opportunities across our NBFI platform,' said EFG Hermes Finance CEO Walid Hassouna. 'The venture will allow us to integrate our capabilities across both firms to avail value-adding services to valU's merchant network through offering them holistic solutions that meet their business needs.'

Through the collaboration, valU will be able to offer an unmatched service level to its partners, providing them with immediate access to premium financial services to expand their operations. Corp-Solutions will leverage valU's fintech capabilities to automatically generate pre-approved limits through its AI-based scoring and underwriting process, broaden its product portfolio, and expand into mass market financing solutions.

'The partnership only serves to underscore valU's unwavering commitment to offer our partners unlimited support and opportunities to grow their businesses just as we have done for the clients we serve every day,' said valU CEO Mohamed El-Feky. 'With the current challenges plaguing the market due to the pandemic, there is no better time than now to tap into the resources we have as an integrated financing platform and capitalize on the synergies inherent in the NBFI platform's business model.'

EFG Hermes launched its NBFI platform EFG Hermes Finance in 2015 to oversee the Group's activities in the non-bank financing fields. The platform consists of valU for instalment sale services, which was established in 2017; EFG Hermes Corp-Solutions, which was established in 2020 to consolidate the Firm's factoring and leasing arms; and Tanmeyah Microfinance, which was acquired by the Firm in 2016. In 2020, the Firm also added payment solutions provider PayTabs Egypt to its NBFI roster. The platform seeks to continue to diversify its product and service offering in order to provide the market with a comprehensive range of non-bank financing solutions.