Visa has launched a new round of its “She’s Next” initiative in Egypt, alongside fresh insights into the digitisation of women-led small and medium businesses, as the country’s fintech and SME ecosystem continues to scale.
The programme is designed to support female entrepreneurs through funding, mentorship, and access to digital tools, helping them transition toward more resilient, tech-enabled business models. In parallel, Visa’s research highlights a clear shift: women-led SMBs in Egypt are increasingly adopting digital payments, e-commerce, and mobile-first operations to reach customers and manage growth.
This matters because SMEs form the backbone of Egypt’s economy, and digitisation is quickly becoming the dividing line between businesses that scale and those that stagnate. For women entrepreneurs, access to digital infrastructure, payments, and financial tools is not just an efficiency play, it is a market access play.
Visa’s push aligns with broader national and regional efforts to expand financial inclusion and digital payments adoption. Egypt has seen strong growth in mobile wallets, QR-based payments, and fintech platforms, supported by regulatory reforms and public-private collaboration. Initiatives like “She’s Next” are designed to accelerate this momentum at the grassroots level.
Beyond funding, the programme addresses a more structural challenge: capability. Many SMBs struggle not with demand, but with execution, onboarding to digital platforms, managing online transactions, and scaling operations. Training and mentorship therefore become critical components of long-term success.
The initiative also reflects a global trend where payment networks are evolving beyond transaction processing into ecosystem enablers. By supporting entrepreneurs directly, Visa is positioning itself deeper within the SME growth journey, influencing how businesses adopt and use digital financial tools.
Egypt’s large, young, and increasingly digital population makes it a high-potential market for SME-led growth, particularly in sectors such as retail, services, and online commerce.
Editor’s Note:
The real opportunity in Egypt’s fintech growth is not at the top, it is at the SME layer. Digitising women-led businesses is one of the fastest ways to expand transaction volume, financial inclusion, and economic participation simultaneously. Visa understands this. The companies that win in this market will not just enable payments, they will enable businesses to exist and scale digitally.
