Since taking over from Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar six months ago, the chairman of the Bank of Alexandria and of Egyptian American Bank (Bank of Alexandria’s joint venture with American Express Bank), Mahmoud Abdel Latif, has been busy trying to get the bank in shape.
A former Citibanker and the former head of Chase Manhattan’s regional operations, Mahmoud is one of the new generation of Egyptian bankers that have been brought in to run the ailing state banks.
The Bank of Alexandria is the smallest of Egypt’s big four although it has the largest international operations. Like the rest of the big four, Bank of Alexandria has suffered from excessive bureaucracy, directed lending policies, and poor IT infrastructure.
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Mahmoud Abdel Atif: one of the new generation of Egyptian bankers |
A new philosophy Since taking over at Bank of Alexandria, Mahmoud has worked aggressively to address the bank’s non-performing loan ratio, estimated to be over 15.2%, and has brought in 15 senior managers from Citigroup and JPMorgan. The bank’s new philosophy is to work closely with struggling clients to help them restructure their debt and to dispose of non-core assets.
Mahmoud has also had the entire risk procedures manual rewritten, and has just implemented a new staff training programme. Everyone in the bank from the top down will now have to attend at least one course a year. “It’s not just the infrastructure that needs overhauling, the entire culture needs to change,” says Mahmoud.
The joint venture banks have been slowly winning market share from the big four for the past few years, albeit from a very low starting point, but the threat of increased competition is not the chairman’s main concern. “We have a good market share,” says Mahmoud, “but if the bank is to reclaim its proper position we will need to focus on restructuring: restructuring our IT, our staff, our procedures, our policies and on renovating our branches,” he says, listing some core problem areas.
Mahmoud cares passionately about his country and has given up the comforts of working for well-oiled international banks to deal with the bureaucratic mindset of a government institution. But he took the leap because for the first time he feels that Egypt has a government that is really committed to reform. “I’m 48 – you no longer need to be 75 and dying to be a chairman. There’s a real fever here and now it’s up to us.”
