Assessing the Maturity of Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) Framework in the Egyptian Banking Sector

Banking sector in Egypt is one of the largest business sectors in terms of contributing to country economic growth and in terms of investing in information technology (IT). Thus, implementing a good Information Technology (IT) governance framework inside Egyptian banks is a rather critical issue. The purpose of this chapter is to assess the importance and the implementation of Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) high level processes in the Egyptian banking sector. A total of 25 working banks in Egypt which are registered in the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) from (public sector, private and joint venture and foreign) banks were interviewed in a series of one-to-one interviews. The results of this study showed that although the majority of interviewed Chief Information Officer (CIO), IT Managers, IT Auditors and others perceived the importance of COBIT high level processes in their organizations, the majority of the Egyptian banks have a below average maturity level for most of the COBIT processes. Hisham M. Abdelsalam Cairo University, Egypt Ahmed M Marzouk IBM Egypt, Egypt Haitham S. Hamza Cairo University, Egypt