Cairo – Mubasher: Commercial International Bank – Egypt’s (CIB) board of directors on Tuesday approved taking the necessary measures to receive a loan to boost the bank's capital adequacy ratio.

The loan may reach $300 million, the bank said in a filing to the Egyptian Exchange (EGX) on Wednesday.

CIB is in talks with international institutions to take the necessary steps to get the loan and meet capital requirements set by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), the statement showed.

On Thursday, 3 November 2016, the CBE floated the Egyptian pound and allowed banks to freely price the US dollar in an attempt to reform foreign exchange trading following the sharp drop in foreign currency reserves and the rise of the dollar to as much as EGP 20 on the black market.

During Wednesday’s foreign currency trading, the USD-EGP reached EGP 18.701 for buying and EGP 18.801 for selling at the CIB.

Earlier today, CIB reported its consolidated financial statements, registering a profit of EGP 1.552 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, up 35.8% from EGP 1.143 billion in the same period in 2015.

Profits, including minority shareholders’ rights, for the full year 2016 stood at EGP 6.023 billion, up 27.4% from EGP 4.726 billion in 2015.