ALEXBANK Unlocks €30 Million Lending Pool for Egypt’s Small Farmers Under EU-Backed Guarantee
Cairo, September 4, 2026 – Small farmers and agricultural microenterprises across Egypt are set to gain wider access to financing under a new agreement between ALEXBANK and Italy’s Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) that will support a lending portfolio of up to €30 million.
Rather than providing the €30 million directly, the structure uses a €21 million portfolio guarantee to cover as much as 70% of new loans issued by ALEXBANK, reducing part of the lending risk and allowing the bank to extend financing to smaller agricultural businesses that can often struggle to access conventional credit.
The guarantee is fully counter-guaranteed by the European Union and forms part of TERRA — Transforming and Empowering Resilient and Responsible Agribusiness, an EU-supported program promoted by CDP to improve access to finance across African agrifood value chains.
Using guarantees to bring smaller farmers into the credit market
The structure of the agreement is significant because it tackles one of the persistent barriers facing smaller agricultural businesses: the perceived risk of lending to borrowers with limited collateral, smaller balance sheets or less formal financial histories.
By absorbing up to 70% of the risk across the new portfolio, the guarantee gives ALEXBANK greater room to finance small farmers and agricultural microenterprises while keeping the loans within the banking system.
The financing will be available to eligible businesses operating across Egypt’s agrifood sector, with a particular focus on small farmers and microenterprises. The wider objective is to strengthen local agricultural value chains, improve financial inclusion and make food-production businesses more resilient.
The transaction also builds on an existing relationship between ALEXBANK and CDP. The two institutions signed a five-year memorandum of understanding in 2024 aimed at improving access to microcredit and financial resources for Egyptian agricultural businesses.
European capital targets Egypt’s agrifood economy
The latest agreement brings together three different parts of the financing chain.
ALEXBANK, part of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo Group, provides the local banking network and lending capacity, CDP provides the portfolio guarantee structure, while European Union backing reduces the financial risk attached to the facility.
The arrangement uses resources from the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+), placing the transaction within the EU’s wider Global Gateway strategy and Italy’s Mattei Plan for Africa. Egypt is identified as a strategic partner under the latter.
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the Italy–Egypt Business Forum in the presence of senior Egyptian, Italian and European officials, including Egypt’s Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade Mohamed Farid Saleh and Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, as well as Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
ALEXBANK looks deeper into the agricultural value chain
Paolo Vivona, CEO and Managing Director of ALEXBANK, said the partnership builds on the bank’s existing focus on agribusiness and its work with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
He said expanding financial access across Egypt’s agricultural ecosystem could strengthen the agrifood value chain while giving farmers a greater role in economic activity.
For CDP, the financing model is also intended to demonstrate how European development resources can be combined with local financial institutions to reach smaller businesses that traditional development financing may struggle to serve directly.
Carlo Rossotto, CDP’s Director of Development Cooperation and International Institutional Relations, said supporting small farmers ultimately strengthens the resilience of entire communities, with the guarantee designed to direct financing toward areas where it can generate wider economic and social impact.
EU Ambassador to Egypt Angelina Eichhorst said TERRA is intended to support food security, employment and rural communities while helping build an agricultural sector that is more sustainable and resilient to climate pressures.
For Egypt’s agricultural sector, the most important figure in the agreement is therefore not the €21 million guarantee itself, but the €30 million in lending it is designed to unlock.
If deployed as intended, the mechanism could bring formal financing closer to farmers and microenterprises that sit at the beginning of Egypt’s food supply chain — using European risk-sharing to turn development funding into loans on the ground.