NBE Mandates Banks Erect Disaster Recovery Data Centre


NBE Mandates Banks Erect Disaster Recovery Data Centre

Last week, regulators at the National Bank Of Ethiopia (NBE) introduced a new directive that obliges commercial banks to build a recovery data centre. The directive dictates the data centre needs to be disengaged from the banks' primary IT centres, at least 120Km away from the main site. In the event that banks experience an incident that could have significant implications for their services or financial standing, their executives are required to inform the NBE's banking supervision directorate within two working days. Commercial banks are also required to automate their core business processes and make them interoperable with one another to ensure automated data sharing. All commercial banks are operating with a core banking system. Several banks are using systems supplied by Oracle, a software company based in the US. Core banking systems supplied by Temenos, a software company based in Switzerland, are also widely used. The NBE stipulates that banks must revise their IT risk management policies intermittently.


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Electricity Bills Get the VAT Jolt

The new Value Added Tax (VAT) has begun implementation on electricity consumption and various service fees affecting customers who use more than 200 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. Based on a directive from the Ministry of Finance, the tax will be applied to the excess amount of electricity consumption above 200 kilowatt hours. The Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) began implementing the VAT on bills starting from November though both prepaid and postpaid customers will have to pay VAT a...


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World Bank Greases Financial Overhaul

The World Bank approved 700 million dollars in credit from the International Development Association (IDA) to scale up support for the financial sector. The funds are targeted at modernizing the regulatory and supervisory framework of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), supporting governance reforms, balance sheet restructuring, and recapitalization of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), and transforming the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) into a sustainable development finance institutio...


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Gadaa Bank Expands Reach, Faces Lending Constraints

Gadaa Bank closed its first full fiscal year of operations with a net profit of 90.2 million Br. The 18-month-old Bank held its annual general assembly at Millenium Hall on Africa Avenue last week where the board announced that during the year, the Bank opened 15 branches and now has 85 operational branches. “Due to recently enacted policy measures on credit by NBE and unmet resource mobilization during the fiscal year, the Bank was unable to make loan disbursements,” stated Wolde Bulto,...