Birr Holds Steady as the Foreign Currency Market Splinters

Mar 28 , 2026.

The Birr (Brewed BucK) looked calm on the surface last week.

The week opened with the Central Bank posting the highest buy quote, but it closed with Oromia Bank as the most aggressive commercial bidder and the leader on the sell side. By the end of the week, the National Bank of Ethiopia’s (NBE) buying rate was 3.44 Br above Tsehay Bank’s 152.99 Br, yet 0.55 Br below Oromia Bank’s top commercial bid.

The average buying rate moved from 153.77 Br to 153.91 Br, while the average selling rate edged up from 156.74 Br to 156.89 Br. On a simple average across 30 banks, the buying rate was 153.85 Br and the selling rate 156.82 Br. The Birr weakened by only under 0.1pc in six days.

But the averages concealed a market that was no longer moving in one line. It was fragmenting into tiers, with some banks repricing sharply, others barely moving, and the Central Bank following a pattern unlike the rest.

The decisive break came on March 26, when the average buying rate for the market jumped by almost 0.10 Br in a single day, the largest collective repricing of the week. Even then, the average understated the strain. The slight fall in the all-bank average the following day did not point to a stronger Birr. It came almost entirely from a single move by the Central Bank. Excluding it, the commercial-bank average buying rate increased every day last week.

That mattered because the Central Bank began the week as the strongest quoted buyer in the market. Through March 26, it posted a buying rate of 157.10 Br. Yet it was an outlier. Its selling rate was identical to its buying rate, leaving it with a zero spread, while every commercial bank maintained a two percent spread. Then, on March 27, the Central Bank cut its buying rate by 0.65 Br to 156.44 Br and kept it there on March 28. That was the sharpest negative adjustment recorded during the week, and it changed the market’s pecking order.

The beneficiary was Oromia Bank. It had held its buying rate at 156.99 Br for most of the week before inching it up to 157 Br on March 28. Its selling rate remained the highest throughout, rising from 160.13 Br to 160.14 Br.

For the first three days of last week, Goh Betoch Bank was the lowest buyer, posting 152.63 Br from March 23 to March 25. It then reset sharply higher to 153.44 Br on March 26. From that point, Tsehay Bank became the buyer with the lowest rate, staying at 152.99 Br through the rest of the week. The same sequence appeared on the selling side. Goh Betoch posted the lowest selling rate, 155.68 Br, for the first half of the week, before Tsehay took over at 156 Br from March 26 onward. By March 28, the distance between the highest and lowest buying quotes had widened to over 4.00 Br, from Oromia Bank’s 157 Br to Tsehay’s 152.99 Br.

The state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) sat close to that lower boundary. Its buying rate moved from 153.01 Br on March 23 to 153.02 Br on March 28, a rise of only 0.015 Br over six days. While much of the market drifted up, CBE was nearly fixed. On a sticker price basis, it ended the week about 0.88 Br below the March 28 market average of 153.91 Br. That made its quoted board conservative relative to peers. In practice, banks appeared increasingly willing to offset low headline quotes with bonuses and sweeteners, making posted rates a less complete guide to bid intensity.

The fracture was also visible among the large private banks, which no longer moved as a bloc. By March 28, Wegagen Bank and Zemen Bank occupied a higher tier, with buying rates of 154.59 Br and 154.62 Br. Bank of Abyssinia sat below them, but still above the low-153 tier, at 154.26 Br. Awash Bank and Dashen Bank remained lower at 153.32 Br and 153.09 Br, respectively. The spread between the highest and lowest bidder within this group reached 1.53 Br on the final day.

Wegagen and Zemen banks looked less like temporary outliers than members of a separate pricing club. Abyssinia followed its own pattern, making the clearest jump among the big private five when its buying rate leapt by 0.43 Br on March 25 before easing into daily increments.

Elsewhere, the market was sorted into classes. Oromia Bank was the commercial pace setter, while the Central Bank was the administrative outlier. Premium private banks, notably Wegagen, Zemen, and, to a lesser degree, Abyssinia, kept buying rates above the market average and most of their peers.

Then came the late repricers and catch-up movers. Ahadu Bank’s buying rate increased by 0.89 Br on March 26, marking the week's largest positive repricing. Goh Betoch Bank jumped by 0.81 Br on the same day. Berhan Bank followed with a 0.55 Br increase on March 27. Addis Bank moved by 0.38 Br on March 26 and by another 0.16 Br on March 28. The state policy bank, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), made its main move earlier, with a 0.38 Br increase on March 24. ZamZam surged by 0.50 Br on March 26, only to reverse 0.32 Br a day later. Bunna Bank also belonged to this broader class of one-off movers.

At the other extreme sat the near-fixed quoters.

Tsehay, NIB, Dashen, Sinqee, and, by behaviour if not by ownership, the CBE, all acted as low-posting anchors. Gadaa and Hijra banks remained unchanged throughout the week, while Nib and Tsehay were also effectively frozen.

The anomalies ran in several directions at once, as the Central Bank’s zero-spread quote and Oromia Bank’s persistence at the top of the sell rankings and eventual capture of the top buy ranking. Wegagen’s and Zemen’s refusal to converge with Awash and Dashen banks, and the divide between banks that moved by less than one hundredth of a Birr and those that repriced by half a Birr or more.

The week’s main message was structural, not directional, as the Central Bank no longer dominated pricing leadership. Neither were the large private banks acting as a coherent bloc. CBE’s board rate was low enough to require bonuses to stay competitive. The Brewed Buck did not simply weaken. It splintered into tiers. That was what made Oromia Bank’s move through 157 Br, and the Central Bank’s retreat to 156.44 Br, the defining markers of the week.

PUBLISHED ON Mar 28,2026 [ VOL 26 , NO 1352]