National Bank of Egypt (NBE), one of the country’s leading commercial banks, is to launch a mobile payments service in the country with two partners.

The Phone Cash payment wallet is open to banked and unbanked customers who can use the service to send money, pay phone bills, load credit onto pre-paid phones, make donations, reserve airline tickets and make e-commerce transactions, among other capabilities.

The wallet will also be used “very soon” to make point-of-sale payments for goods and services with local merchants.

Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao recently pointed to the potential of the Egyptian market for mobile payments, describing it as “enormous”. The operator is considering launching M-Pesa there.

NBE’s partner are Fawry, which enables users to pay bills through more than 20,000 payment points including banks, ATMs, post offices and shops, and Egyptian Banks Company, an IT provider to the banking sector.

The Phone Cash wallet is built on MasterCard’s recently launched Mobile Payment Gateway in Egypt.

The wallet works independently of any mobile operator or handset. NBE says it is the first bank in the country and wider Middle East to offer such a service.

Consumers can download the Phone Cash app to any mobile handset. The wallet is then recharged by paying in money from any Fawry outlet. NBE customers can link their MasterCard cards to the wallet.