Abd al-Manam Rahwan, director of the company’s Electronic Payment Programs for Pensions and Benefits, confirmed that 10,000 cards would soon be available for use at post offices in the Red Sea and Mersa Matruh provinces.

He added that an additional 1.5m users would need to be registered in order for the company to reach its 4.5m user goal by the end of 2013. He added that currently 2m of the company’s card owners used them at local insurance outlets, with another 1m using the cards at post offices. He stated that 200,000 cards to be used in post offices were still awaiting activation.

E-Finance expects the number of benefit cards operating in insurance outlets to increase to 3m, with plans to activate an additional 700,000 cards currently underway.

Rashwan said that the company expects the total number of card users to reach 5m by 2014.