More than 1 million cellphone subscribers in the populous African country of Ethiopia have registered for a new mobile money service less than a week after its launch by state-controlled Ethio Telecom, the company has said. The service, called Telebirr, is to be integrated with banks in the coming weeks.
The service allows Ethio Telecom customers to send, store and receive money using only their phone number. It also aims to extend mobile services to financially excluded sections of society. The service solution’s development was undertaken by Chinese tech giant Huawei.
Ethiopia ranks among the lowest countries in the world in terms of the use of digital financial services, according to a recent survey by the World Bank. This is in part why GSMA, an organization representing mobile network operators which collects data on the sector, describes the country of 112 million “as one of Africa’s sleeping mobile money giants.”
“Sub-Saharan Africa will have more than 130 million new subscribers by 2025, half of which will come from just five markets, including Ethiopia,” GSMA’s acting head for sub-Saharan Africa Angela Wamola says. That makes the country “a key market for mobile” on the continent.
Ethio Telecom currently has around 50 million subscribers on its cellphone network. CEO Frehiwot Tamiry says the company’s goal is to get 21 million registered users on the platform in the next 12 months.
„Registered customers have reached 1,030,369 in six days since the service launched,” Ethio Telecom announced on May 17.
Last year, Ethiopia launched Ethswitch, a platform that allows the country’s 19 finance institutions to share payment platforms such as point-of-sale machines and ATMs. The total number of finance institutions is however still considered inadequate given the country’s population. According to a paper in the International Journal of Economics and Finance, 66% of Ethiopia’s adult population, or 36 million people, do not have access to the country’s financial system.
Plans to link Telebirr with banks, as well as plans to allow additional privately run mobile wallets one year from now, will enhance the cross-bank switch already operational under Ethswitch, thus bumping up ease of finance transactions for the country’s citizenry.
According to Firehiwot Tamiru, Ethio Telecom’s chief executive officer, the company is projecting up to 53 million Ethiopians will be mobile money service users and the service will be available in five languages.
„I expect about 40 to 50 percent of Ethiopia’s economic activity to be transacted on the ‘Telebirr’ platform within five years. I also want to commend Huawei for finishing the mobile money services solution project in five months, down from an initial projected completion period of two years,” Tamiru said.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
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