A little about Contact Financial Holding‘s history
The story starts in 1998 with three entrepreneurs raising capital for the business in a very similar manner to how startups are being built nowadays, but with the very futuristic idea they had of starting a finance “company”, it took them three years to establish the company in 2001. Starting off with just auto loans and car insurance, Contact introduced securitization as a first in the Egyptian financial market in 2005.
Later, Contact Financial Holding has expanded its offerings to continue leading the market by providing more retail financial services such as auto loan packages, mortgage, and consumer finance. The products were not only limited to retail but also served SMEs by acquiring a leasing and factoring firm that focuses on financing medical equipment and commercial vehicles to help grow the smaller businesses in Egypt.
In 2013, Sarwa Capital Holding was established to be the umbrella under which all the group’s companies and activities operate. Although Contact Financial Holding was offering car insurance products since the very beginning and established an insurance brokerage company in 2014, it was not fully announced as a player in the insurance market until establishing two insurance subsidiaries in 2018 – Sarwa Insurance and Sarwa Life Insurance.
Shortly after announcing a strong presence in the insurance market, Sarwa Capital Holding went public in October 2018. CFH believes in providing phenomenal service to all clients equally while focusing on being ahead in the industry, the market offerings, and product/service technology.
Contact Financial Holding is playing a prominent role in Egypt’s financial markets
One of Contact’s core values is to provide superior services for everyone, which is the basis of how we build and develop our products. Through marking, these products fit for all types of clients, we were able to serve a large segment who do not have bank accounts or do not deal with the local banking system – thus leading to an economic inclusion as a by-product of the well developed and carefully built financial operation. As one out of every two clients does not go to banks for their financial transactions, yet we in CFH helped them take this step through our products and services.
Key updations which we have implemented in the financial sector
At CFH, we love innovation, we love thinking outside the box and that is why we always focus on product development as a cornerstone when it comes to giving clients solution-based products that help them with their financial needs with built-in insurance to pioneer in asset-backed securities for the first time in Egypt.
Lately, we have replaced the consumer finance card solution we had with an OTP web-based solution, also, after establishing the leading car community and information website in Egypt – Contactcars.com – as a separate company, we are working on helping the website user using artificial intelligence choosing his/her ideal car and pricing his/her existing car.
Our auto product Contact Auto is one of the leading auto-loan providing schemes in the Egyptian market ever since we launched it in 2001. We finance up to 80% of the vehicle’s value with or with a sealing value of EGP 3mn (whichever best applicable) and availing a repayment period of up to 5 years. The loan processing time is very seamless and our team takes care of the formalities in a very minimal time. End-to-end assistance starting from registration of the vehicle to licensing and insuring are taken care of by our product. We have maintained healthy relationships with the largest automotive agents at over 1000 car showrooms in Egypt.
Also, we have just developed a Home finishing financial solution that lies midway between mortgage and consumer finance. The customer can opt for this solution if he/she wishes to finish or transform or renovate his/her dream home. The customer enjoys a network of finishing merchants where he/she can directly purchase the products with just the national ID and the facility to pay off up to 60 monthly instalments. No down payment and unit ownership is required in this scheme.
Our associated companies and geographical presence
CFH is currently present in every major city in Egypt with 27 major branches and 7 more to be open by the end of 2021, also we have a plan for smaller branches to start penetrating the market in smaller cities and villages with 50 small branches to bring the financial solutions ever closer to the less fortunate and marginalized.
Through the years we have made several successful acquisitions but the most eminent one is the acquisition of AT finance that was rebranded to plus leasing and later to contact leasing, the significance of this acquisition particularly is that it allowed CFH for the first time to provide financial solutions to businesses and not only to individuals.
Contact Financial Holding’s (CFH) motto in being one of Egypt’s fastest-growing businesses consistently
People, innovation, and credibility.
We believe and invest in the minds that made that achievement possible. With the latest technology to support their work with credibility, credibility being the most important asset we have as a financial institution. The above key concepts will allow the fast reliable growth to continue and for the trusting customer base to expand.
The steady expansion of CFH for the last 20 years has finally transformed to well-studied fast growth, nevertheless, while maintaining the technical know-how that made us successful pioneers for over 20 years.