My Opinion | Feb 12,2022
Central bank Governor Yinager Dessie (PhD) and Dereje Zenebe (far left), president of Zemen Bank, joined Tsehay Shiferaw (second from left) and Yilebes Addis, board chairperson and CEO of EthSwitch, respectively, to celebrate the payment switch operator's 10th anniversary at the Hilton Hotel last Thursday.
It was an event that saw C-suites and officials from the Ministry of Finance and the central bank well acquainted with one another affirm an auspicious yet uncertain moment in the history of Ethiopia’s financial sector. The occasion also saw a panel discussion on the importance of a national switch system in the payment industry and a short documentary on the company’s 10-year journey. EthSwitch, owned by all banks and established to enable interoperability between them, has reasons to celebrate. Through its national payment system, inter-bank transactions stood at over 38 million last year, a 41.5pc increase from the previous year. Its net profits of 87.3 million Br may not seem much compared to what its shareholders (the banks) report these days; it soared by 211.6pc from the previous year. Its fortune has been just as bright as that of the banking industry, which has seen impressive growth despite the war in the northern part and the political uncertainty across the country.
“[It] was a challenging year both at the global and national levels," said Tsehay, who also serves as president of Awash International Bank. "Yet, EthSwitch concluded a very successful year in the face of uncertainties. We can list up to eight new developments in the areas of the payment industry that are impacting positively the way our society transacts payments.”
One of these developments is interoperability between banks' mobile and internet payment systems, the latest frontier after automated teller machines (ATMs) and points of sale (PoS) systems. It has been the main hurdle not just for the payments industry but also for digital services.
PUBLISHED ON
Dec 19,2021 [ VOL
22 , NO
1129]
My Opinion | Feb 12,2022
Fortune News | May 14,2022
Films Review | Jul 25,2020
Radar | Dec 19,2021
Exclusive Interviews | Feb 12,2022
November 27 , 2021
Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most sa...
November 13 , 2021
Plans and reality do not always gel. They rarely do in a fast-moving world. Every act...
October 16 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
Residing in a country with no capital market, an organised marketplace for trading se...
August 28 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
The streets of Addis Abeba are as varied as they are many, although too many of them have yet to be named. From the narrow alleyways of the...
June 25 , 2022
It is not the best of times to be in charge of governance in Ethiopia, whether at the...
June 18 , 2022
Some of Ethiopia's economic policymakers may take solace from realising that inflatio...
June 11 , 2022
The stereotype many people have of parliamentarians is as clueless seat fillers who exist to rubber stamp legislative bi...
June 4 , 2022
It was an institution confident in its mission, capabilities and progress that was on...
Loading your updates...
Put your comments here