Brewed Buck Holds Its Nerve, or Its Breath

Aug 9 , 2026.

The Birr (the Brewed Buck) has held an improbable calm last week. Even though the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) ran no foreign-exchange auction for weeks, the official market moved only fractionally in the days to Saturday, August 8, 2026.

However, the stability is striking, yet there is no proof that supply and demand are in balance.

Across the commercial banks, and leaving aside the Central Bank's non-commercial indicative quotation, the average dollar-buying rate increased from 160.29 Br on August 3 to 160.46 Br two days later. That was a gain of 0.17 Br, 0.11pc. The average selling rate moved almost identically, from 163.50 Br to 163.67 Ber, a gain of 0.17 Br.

There was no aggregate reversal of the Birr's slide, nor anything resembling auction-driven repricing. Nearly three-fifths of the adjustment came in the two days beginning on August 3, when the average buying rate jumped about 10 cents. Daily increases then narrowed to two cents or less, a few banks revising while much of the market stayed still.

The absence of an auction makes the composure more telling. A prolonged halt to dollar sales might have pushed banks to bid harder. This did not happen visibly, and posted rates stayed anchored around the Central Bank's indicative rate. That may signal confidence in the policy anchor. It may equally mean adjustment is happening through rationing, waiting times, negotiated bonuses and dollar availability at the quoted price.

Posted rates show the board price, not volumes, unfilled orders or waiting times.

The big private five - Awash, Abyssinia, Dashen, Wegagen and Zemen - showed this caution. Zemen Bank ended at 161.51 Br, up 14.06 cents from August 3. The Bank of Abyssinia closed at 160.38 Br. Dashen Bank ended at 159.93 Br, identical to Awash Bank's 159.93 Br, while Wegagen Bank held its buying rate at 159.80 Br throughout, abstaining from the repricing entirely.

However, the five were not moving as a bloc. Zemen Bank sat 1.58 Br above the average of its peers; Awash and Dashen banks were about six cents below 160 Br, Wegagen Bank more than 19 cents short. Their average Saturday quote was 160.3 Br, below the market average because three stayed under the 160 Br threshold.

Market leadership changed hands over the past three weeks. Abay Bank posted the highest buying rate, 163.21 Br, and selling rate, 166.47 Br, up 13 cents over the week. It displaced Oromia Bank, long the market's highest posted rate. Oromia Bank ended at 163.02 Br, 18.6 cents below Abay Bank, with Bunna Bank at 162.95 Br.

The three formed a high-price frontier, bidding almost 2.50 Br more than the market average. At the other end, Nib Bank held buying unchanged at 159.28 Br and selling at 162.46 Br, the lowest commercial offer on both sides on August 8.

A customer selling 1,000 dollars would in theory receive 163,211.80 Br from Abay Bank but 159,282.90 Br from Nib Bank, a 3,928.90 Br difference, while a buyer would face a 4,007.40 Br gap between the two selling prices, if dollars were on hand.

Over the week, though, the lowest quotations belonged to the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) on August 3, at 159.03 Br buying and 162.21 Br selling. CBE then increased buying in four mechanical 20-cent steps, pausing only on August 7, to reach 159.83 Br by Saturday, with selling rising in parallel to 163.02 Br, an administered crawl rather than price discovery.

CBE's published rate also understates its position because it offers a top-up bonus for surrendered dollars. Without the bonus size and eligibility, an effective CBE rate cannot be worked out, and board-rate comparisons may misjudge banks as competition shifts to supplements outside the standard rate.

The Saturday average across the 29 banks, but excluding the Central Bank, was 160.47 Br, about 63 cents above the CBE. Stripping out CBE and the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) gives a private-bank average of 160.50 Br, close to the 70-cent difference.

The Central Bank's indicative quotation moved from 159.84 Br to 159.98 Br, a rise of 0.09pc, unchanged over the final two days. The banking-system average ended 0.48 Br above the NBE reference, against 0.45 Br at the start.

The market's centre did not converge on the Central Bank rate; its premium widened slightly. Convergence shows instead at the bottom.

On August 3, the Central Bank rate was 0.81 Br above the lowest quotation. The gap narrowed to 0.68 Br by August 5, when Nib Bank became the lowest bidder, before widening to 0.70 Br by Saturday. The narrowing trend is there, but not uninterrupted or market-wide.

Saturday's market held three price classes, the Central Bank apart. Six banks sat above 161 Br, among them Abay, Oromia, Bunna and Siinqee. Eleven ranged between 160 Br and 161 Br. Twelve stayed below 160 Br, among them CBE, Awash, Dashen, Wegagen and Nib banks.

Gradual crawlers included Abay, Zemen, Awash, Dashen, Abyssinia, Hibret and Sidama banks. Step-changers Siinqee, CBE, Lion and Berhan banks made large revisions, then held. Oromia and Bunna banks stayed near the top while moving only 0.03 Br and 0.02 Br.

Nine financial institutions - Ahadu, Amhara, DBE, Gadaa, Global Bank Ethiopia, Hijra, Nib, Tsehay and Wegagen banks - left both quotations unchanged. Their inertia is hard to square with a market responding uniformly to dollar scarcity. They may mirror different foreign-exchange positions, customer bases or no transactions at posted prices.

Siinqee Bank was the clearest outlier last week, raising its buying from 159.80 Br to 161.80 Br in a single day, almost exactly two Birr, then barely moved. Its six-day increase of 1.25pc was more than 11 times the market-average rise, alone accounting for about 40pc of the aggregate increase.

CBE was the second-largest mover, adding 0.80 Br, then Anbesa Bank at 0.40 Br and Berhan at 0.25 Br. Together, the four banks made up almost 70pc of the upward adjustment in buying quotations. The stable average, therefore, hid unusually concentrated repricing.

The calm during the auction hiatus was real in a narrow sense, the average posted value of the Birr changing by barely one-tenth of one percent. Beneath that calm lay a segmented market. A few banks bid aggressively for dollars, others climb in controlled increments, several lean on bonuses, and almost a third have not moved.

The Brewed Buck has not been shaken. Yet the absence of volatility may say as much about how the official market rations foreign currency as about supply and demand.

PUBLISHED ON Aug 09,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1371]