EFG Hermes Holding and GB Capital Launch Kaf

Following the acquisition of a 75% stake by EFG Hermes Holding and GB Capital in Tokio Marine Egypt Family Takaful in 2020, the company has been rebranded to Kaf. Under the guidance of new management brought in following the acquisition, the company aims to set itself apart by making insurance effortless for their customers and by providing them with straight-forward, fair, and value-for-money insurance solutions.

Kaf aims to make insurance simpler, more accessible, and hassle-free to the wider strata of the Egyptian population, all through a trusted platform that caters to the various needs of the company’s clients. The brand name Kaf in Arabic means adequate and fit for the purpose. True to its name, Kaf aims to secure client satisfaction through ease of accessibility, minimal bureaucracy, and absolute transparency. In short, Kaf promises to make insurance easy and well-suited for its customers.

“We are incredibly proud of how far we have come in such a short time in the market, which I can only attribute to the strength of our young, passionate, and growing team, the trust our clients have placed in us, and a commitment to our purpose: driving the perception of insurance as a social good that safeguards the health and wealth of Egyptians,” said Sohail Ali, Managing Director of Kaf. “Since our launch, we have worked hard to provide peace of mind and improve the lives of individuals and, by extension, their communities through offering simple-to-understand products and fresh solutions, which is reflected in our slogan: making it easy, doing it right. Moving forward, we will continue to live up to our purpose of contributing to social stability and poverty reduction by bridging the insurance gap in Egypt through innovative, tech-enabled solutions.”

Since the acquisition 18 months ago, Kaf has witnessed explosive growth, from 0.1 million customers pre-acquisition to currently covering the lives of c. 2 million Egyptians in 2022. The company has been focused on issuing policies targeting employees, small business owners, and the micro segment.

“Insurance is an important tool for economic development, and we are currently reaping the fruits of reforms in Egypt that foster financial inclusion.  Recently, the Egyptian government has worked to improve access to financial services for the low-income segment, developing sound regulatory frameworks and lowering barriers to financial access, and we expect continued growth in the Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFI) segment over the coming years. We’re honored to support and be part of this initiative to increase awareness of the importance of insurance. Plugging the insurance gap will provide protection for the low-income segment from falling into poverty in the event of misfortune,” added Ali.

Building on the disruptive heritage of both EFG Hermes Holding and GB Capital, Kaf will seek to bring a fresh perspective to a well-established industry. The company is focused on building tech-led, innovative insurance solutions, designed with accessibility and simplicity in mind. This is expected to manifest itself in the introduction of products with simple policy terms and leveraging on seamless processes that center around transparency and user friendliness.

Aladdin ElAfifi, CEO of EFG Hermes Holding’s Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFI) platform, commented, “Kaf’s success, built on the longstanding history of collaboration between EFG Hermes Holding and GB Capital, is as exciting as it is high-yielding and conducive to exponential growth. Our strategy for the NBFI platform is to persist in identifying key opportunities in the market that allow us to fully capitalize on our cross-selling capabilities so that we may continue to reap the fruits of these collaborations in the near future. We are advancing towards this goal with full force, exerting ambitious efforts towards not only providing more integrated, end-to-end service offerings, but also creating space for natural synergies between our companies that will no doubt result in future growth for all stakeholders.”

In 2015, EFG Hermes Holding launched its NBFI platform to offer a wealth of non-bank financial services, such as factoring and leasing through EFG Hermes Corp-Solutions; microfinance through Tanmeyah; Buy-Now, Pay-Later (BNPL) through valU; mortgage financing through Bedaya; e-payments through PayTabs Egypt; and now insurance though Kaf.

Commenting on GB Capital’s investment in Kaf, GB Capital’s Chairman, Mansour Kabbani, said, “We strive to explore the full, and yet untapped, potential of this market. We are aware that the Egyptian insurance industry is primed for significant growth and profitable expansion, and we intend to capitalize on that. As such, this move aligns perfectly with our vision for the future, which sees our NBFI business expanding as we diversify our portfolio of offerings in the areas of leasing, consumer finance, Buy-Now, Pay-Later, factoring, micro finance, mortgage finance, securitization, fleet leasing, e-payments, and insurance.”