The Egyptian pound has weakened to around 50.35 against the US dollar as of 2:45pm, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Egypt devalued its currency following a huge interest rate hike of 600 bps by the central bank on Wednesday morning. 

The Egyptian pound plunged about 26.5% to a record low of 42 per dollar as of 10:35am in Cairo today after trading at about 30.9 for the past year.

After an exceptional meeting on Wednesday morning, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) announced that that it will leave the foreign exchange rate to forces of supply and demand in the market, allowing the local currency to depreciate against foreign currencies.

The country's central bank has also directed opening of credit card limit, Reuters reported citing state television. According to the central bank, the move is aimed at boosting stability of local exchange currency.

Last year, Egypt's central bank had told commercial banks to restrict customers from using credit cards for transactions in foreign currencies both domestically and abroad.

IMF deal soon?

A senior source has told Egyptian news channel Al Qahera that an Egypt-IMF deal will be signed very soon, Reuters reported.

The IMF on February 27 announced that it has resolved all the major issues with Egypt regarding its review of a $3 billion loan programme and an additional financing package would be finalised within weeks.

However, the IMF did not disclose the size of the expected increase in the additional financing.

(Reporting by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)