Universal financial inclusivity remains elusive in Africa, with no countries reaching a 'mature level' while only five are labelled 'progressed' in the spectrum. Ethiopia along with a dozen other countries is labelled unranked for failing to provide data in the public domain and meet the minimum criteria of inclusivity.

The annual report by AfricaNenda, released last week, highlights the moderate continental progress in the year as 400 million adults do not have bank accounts and challenges of a well-developed digital public infrastructure persist.

Sabine Mensah, the deputy CEO of AfricaNenda, disclosed that insights from the report can allow countries with emergent payment systems, like Ethiopia, to fast-track into inclusivity by leveraging on experiences from the continent. She highlighted the importance of having responsive redress mechanisms to build functional relationships between operators and customers in newly emerging payment systems.

"Trust is at the core of inclusivity," she told Fortune.

Ethiopia has a low percentage of its transactions processed through instant payment systems at 0.3pc of the gross national income, facilitated solely through EthSwitch. This is despite the country being the sole recipient of coverage of a domestic payment system in Africa since last year, following a 2.33 million grant by the African Development Bank (AfDB) to upgrade its payment infrastructure.

An inclusive payment system (IPS) entails round-the-clock real-time transactions, through low-cost push in an open loop and multilateral and interoperable arrangements with the central bank maintaining a role in systems governance.

In Africa, over 1.3 trillion dollars was transacted in an inclusive payment system with more than 31 billion transactions across 32 payment systems. Seven countries have multiple IPSs with Ghana being the only country with cross-domain interoperability which allows users to transact across all financial institutions and operators.

The State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems in Africa (SIIPS) report indicates progress across the continent over the past five years, with transactions climbing by 47pc in spite of 27 countries lacking domestic instant payment functionality.

The report points to expanding payment instruments, increasing use cases, boosting interoperability and the range of access channels to realise financial inclusion in Africa. It was financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the World Bank and launched with a two-day event where lively discussions on digital public infrastructure and the growth of financial inclusion took place at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

EthSwitch, which raised its capital to over three billion Birr last year, is one of the three payment systems that went live since the inaugural SIIPS report with plans to avail a national payment gateway system in Ethiopia within the week.

Yared Seyoum, director of strategy and change management at the 12-year-old share company owned by all banks in the country, indicated that the system is working to scale up its person-to-person (P2P) operations to enable retail payments of small amounts with hopes of achieving financial inclusion.

"We have a huge national responsibility," he told Fortune, underscoring that the company connects all financial institutions in the country.

Yared pointed to the digital national ID project as critical in creating valuable aliases to enable further projects like credit scores to expand the available services in the financial landscape. He indicated that the government's objectives in the digital landscape will require collaboration from the central bank, financial technology companies and commercial banks in the long run.

"Financial inclusion requires multisectoral engagement," he said.

The Company is currently working on enabling cross-border payments as a component of the nationwide digital transformation.

EthSwitch had obtained north of 329 million Br in revenues last year, facilitating close to 361,321 interoperable transactions and enabling over 44 billion Br in ATM services. It received an 8.34 million dollar grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the same year, recording close to 20 billion Br valued transactions through interoperability.

Members of payment system directorates from several African central banks were in attendance for the two-day event while former State Minister for Innovation & Technology Huria Ali opened the session.

According to Sabine, who was also the moderator for most of the discussions, the ease and speed in handling possible problems that may arise during transactions go a long way in creating a reliable digital financial ecosystem, with convenience playing a critical role in driving adoption.