This paper examines the strengths and challenges of the Egyptian microfinance laws and regulations that protect impoverished women from overindebtedness. The focus of the analysis is on the regulation of microfinance in the nonbanking sector, that is, microfinance primarily provided by non‐governmental organizations. Although a number of significant laws and regulations have been enacted that provide some protection from overindebtedness, it was found that these protections do not extend far enough, and some critical protections are absent. This leaves the most impoverished Egyptian women using microfinance, vulnerable to overindebtedness.

Microfinance had a clear mission of serving the least privileged. However, 45 years after Muhammad Yunus introduced the first microloans, the global microfinance market has become increasingly commercialized, with high tendencies toward for-profit organizations, in contrast to how it was originally introduced within the realm of not-for-profits. Microfinance is now a multi-billion-dollar financial industry. Microcredit is adopted as an efficient tool to achieve sustainable development goals. This chapter is analyzing how the current Egyptian microfinance regulations can contribute to the achievement of SDGs. The analysis shows that Egypt has developed and enacted a law that is meeting the international standards of microfinance global best practice; however, there is room for ensuring the microfinance institutions are following their social justice mission by regulating other microcredit services beyond financing income-generating activities. The chapter concludes that more regulations are needed to ensure that MFIs are reaching out to women micro-entrepreneurs and doing them no harm.

In 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus, who introduced microloans to poor rural women in Bangladesh to promote their economic growth and empowerment. This economic development model for the poor has expanded throughout the developing world and extended to a wide range of populations with different financial needs, known as microfinance. Microfinance clients typically do not have access to regular banking services because of a lack of collateral or physical proximity to service. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) can serve clients in remote rural areas with little transportation or infrastructure. This chapter examines the case for the regulation of microfinance providers, also known as microfinance institutions (MFIs). Such regulation ensures both economic growth and socio-economic security of vulnerable microfinance borrowers using Egypt as a case study.