Amole, a mobile wallet application developed by Moneta Technologies S.C., launches digital micro-lending services, allowing users to take out loans of as much as 100,000 Br through electronic devices.

The service will cover both individual and business loans in its bucket and an analytical tool that reviews borrowers` transaction history to conduct credit appraisal, developers disclosed to Fortune. For businesses, a "buy now, pay later" arrangement will be available through which proprietors can purchases goods and stock through the digital app's financing. For this segment, the loans can amount up to a couple of million Birr.

Amole is a digital wallet solution launched three years ago in partnership with Dashen Bank. It has 2.1 million unique users, providing various digital payment solutions such as facilitating payments for utilities, airtime top-up, and payments for retail services.  In April this year, Moneta launched an international eCommerce gateway. Thus far, the service is being integrated with 10 merchants to receive international payments through the gateway available with Dashen Bank. Last week, as part of its payment infrastructure expansion, Amole partnered with Flutterwave, a fintech company founded by Nigerians and based in the US, to introduce remittance inflow through its wallet.

Over 232 million Br in payments circulated over Amole in the past two years, with the digital wallet's overall ecosystem amounting to 7.3 billion Br. The total number of transactions made over the service has reached over three million through a mobile app, web app, USSD, and Telegram bot combined.

According to the Yemiru Chanyalew, CEO, an 85pc decline in transactions was recorded following the breakout of COVID-19 in Ethiopia. The majority of payments made before the pandemic were related to sports, entertainment, school, and retail, all of which stagnated after the first case was recorded in March 2020. Having learned from that, Amole is diversifying its interest areas and shifting its focus toward e-commerce and e-delivery markets.

Sources working at Moneta confirmed that the digital micro-lending service would be launched in a month.