Sisi appoints Hassan Abdullah as acting governor of Egypt’s central bank

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi issued Thursday a republican decree appointing Hassan Abdullah former Vice Chairman & Managing Director of the Arab African International Bank, as acting governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).

On Wednesday, former Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer resigned and was appointed consultant to President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

The president thanked Amer for the efforts he deployed during his tenure, while the latter expressed his appreciation for Sisi’s backing in the past years, saying he wanted to make way for fresh blood by stepping down as CBE governor.

The appointment decision comes hours before the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the CBE to take a decision on interest rates, after the Central Bank fixed the overnight deposit rate, overnight lending rate, and the rate of the main operation on hold at 11.25 percent, 12.25 percent, and 11.75 percent, respectively.  The discount rate was also kept unchanged at 11.75 percent.

Recently, Abdullah was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United Media Company, succeeding Tamer Morsi.

Hassan Abdullah began his career in the Arab African International Bank in Egypt in 1982, then moved in 1988 to the bank’s branch in New York, where he was appointed in 1994 as Assistant General Manager, then General Manager in 1999, then Vice President and Managing Director in 2000.

Abdullah held a number of executive positions, as he was appointed as a board member of the Union of Arab and French Banks in Paris, the German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the Advisory Board for Emerging Markets, and the Central Bank of Egypt.

He served as a faculty member at the American University in Cairo, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Board at the College of Business Administration at the American University in Cairo.