The National Bank of Ethiopia began discussions with stakeholders last week on the pending implementation of a national Quick Response(QR) code standard for digital payment transactions. Chaired by Payment and Settlement Systems Director Solomon Damtew, representatives from several banks, fintech companies and the two switch system operators in the country discussed emerging trends at the central bank's headquarters. In the three-year strategy that was made available two weeks ago, the Central Bank revealed plans to increase the role and value of digital payments and financial services, with an ambitious goal to increase them more than fourfold to 17 trillion Br. In Africa, over 1.3 trillion dollars was transacted through inclusive payment systems last year with more than 31 billion transactions across 32 payment systems. The national digital ID dubbed Fayda, which hopes to onboard around 90 million Ethiopians onto its identification program, will play a crucial role in increasing the diversity of available digital finance tools. The World Bank, one of the major financial bankers of the project, is working through the FASTT (Frictionless Affordable Safe Timely Transactions) project to accelerate the adoption of interoperable digital payments in Africa and across emerging markets.

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