Forex Market Quietly Crossed the 160 Br Line

Aug 16 , 2026.

The Birr, the "Brewed Buck," spent another week performing an increasingly familiar trick. It looked placid in the aggregate while the foreign exchange market beneath it changed shape.

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has held no foreign-exchange sale auction for several weeks, holding back what had become an important mechanism for injecting dollars and testing banks' willingness to pay for them. Yet the Birr did not retreat sharply. It weakened by fractions, even as the Central Bank signalled further auctions in August and September, worth a combined half-billion dollars.

The absence of the auction left the banks’ rates to drift on their own.

The average buying quote increased from 160.49 Br a dollar on August 10 to 160.84 Br five days later, a gain of about 0.35 Br, 0.22pc, while the cross-bank range narrowed from 3.93 Br to 3.80 Br. However, the more consequential shift lay beneath those averages.

On Monday, only 17 banks were buying dollars at 160 Br or more. By Saturday, 26 were. Only the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), at 159.83 Br; Global Bank Ethiopia, at 159.62 Br; and Amhara Bank, at 159.99 Br, stayed technically below the line. A week earlier, 12 banks were still under 160 Br. By Saturday, nearly 90pc of the industry sat at or above it.

What had recently marked the high side of the market had become its centre.

Excluding the Central Bank's reference rate, the simple average buying rate for the week was about 160.63 Br a dollar and the selling average was 163.85 Br. The daily buying average moved from 160.49 Br on Monday to 160.52 Br on Tuesday, 160.54 Br on Wednesday, and 160.58 Br on Thursday, then quickened to 160.79 Br on Friday and about 160.88 Br on Saturday.

Selling moved from 163.70 Br to about 164.10 Br. That left the Brewed Buck down only about 0.24pc against the dollar for the week. Set against August 8, when the average buying quote was around 160.47 Br, the gain was 41 cents, 0.26pc. This was depreciation, but hardly a rout.

The movement bunched late in the week. From Monday through Thursday, the industry buying average increased by only nine cents. Almost three-quarters of the week's rise came after August 13. Six banks - Wegagen, Siket, Berhan, Goh Betoch, Nib and Sidama - generated about 71pc of the aggregate increase in buying quotations between Monday and Saturday.

Wegagen Bank was the clearest case. Its buying rate climbed from 159.99 Br to 161.72 Br, a gain of 1.72 Br (1.08pc), lifting it from below 160 Br into seventh place. Against its August 8 level of about 159.80 Br, the weekly rise was 1.92 Br, 1.2pc. A bank that had spent weeks resisting the market's crawl moved abruptly into the upper-premium tier.

Siket Bank added 1.66 Br to 161.49 Br, and Berhan Bank added 1.43 Br to 161.72 Br, bringing it level with Wegagen Bank. Nib Bank gained 1.08 Br, Sidama Bank 0.93 Br and Ahadu Bank 0.88 Br.

Nine banks (Ahadu, Awash, Coop Bank, Dashen, Nib, Sidama, Siket, Tsehay and Wegagen) crossed 160 Br during the week. Tsehay and Coop Bank both ended at 160 Br, small moves that, nonetheless, made the threshold the prevailing floor.

Among the large private banks, the adjustment was uneven. The Bank of Abyssinia raised its buying rate by 0.39 Br, Awash Bank by 0.11 Br, Dashen Bank by 0.11 Br and Zemen Bank by 0.13 Br. Wegagen Bank's 1.72 Br move was more than nine times the average rise of the other four.

Together, Awash, Abyssinia, Dashen, Wegagen and Zemen averaged about 160.87 Br on Saturday, almost identical to the commercial bank average.

At the top, Abay Bank finished the week with the highest buying rate, 163.42 Br, narrowly ahead of Oromia Bank at 163.40 Br and Bunna Bank at 162.98 Br. Abay Bank's selling quote was 166.69 Br, followed by Oromia Bank at 166.67 Br and Bunna Bank at 166.24 Br. Over the week, though, Oromia Bank held the highest average buying quote, at about 163.31 Br, above Abay Bank's 163.28 Br and Bunna Bank's 162.97 Br.

On Saturday, Abay and Oromia banks sat about 2.35 standard deviations above the simple market average.

The gap between Abay and Global banks, the lowest buyer, was 3.80 Br a dollar. A customer selling 1,000 dollars would receive nearly 3,806 Br more at Abay Bank, before bonuses, eligibility rules or other inducements.

Global Bank remained frozen at 159.62 Br throughout the week, with its selling price fixed at 162.81 Br. Nib Bank had been lower throughout Thursday at 159.28 Br before jumping to 160.23 Br on Friday and 160.36 Br on Saturday. Global Bank became the floor not because it cut its rate, but because the market moved past it. Addis Bank offered another oddity. Its rate moved to 160.24 Br on Friday, then slipped to 160 Br on Saturday, a reversal of about 24 cents in a week when most banks moved up or stood still.

The forex market's structure grew more segmented. Abay, Oromia and Bunna banks formed the premium frontier near 163 Br or above, while Siinqee, Hibret, Berhan, Wegagen, Zemen, Siket and Goh Betoch banks occupied an upper-premium band between 161.47 Br and 161.85 Br.

Sixteen banks sat between 160 Br and 161.40 Br. Seven (Amhara, CBE, Gadaa, Global, Goh Betoch, Hijra and Anbesa banks) kept their buying quotes unchanged through the week, while Addis Bank ended where it began after a brief Friday rise.

Posted prices, however, reveal nothing of transaction volumes, customer access, waiting times or whether large deals cleared at the displayed rate. The averages show price posture, not market depth. Posted rates, the effective rates once top-up bonuses are counted, and the prices at which large deals actually clear are three different numbers. Only the first is in public view.

Wegagen Bank's Saturday quote exactly matched the Central Bank reference rate at 161.72 Br, and Berhan Bank posted the same, reinforcing the appearance of convergence around the benchmark. The CBE, too, held unchanged at 159.83 Br, below the private banks' centre of gravity. That gap should not be read too literally, since the CBE, like some rivals, offers top-up incentives for qualifying foreign-currency inflows. The effective amount paid can exceed the board rate.

The most intriguing move came from the Central Bank itself. Its indicative rate was 159.99 Br on August 13, only about 38 cents above Global Bank. The following day, it jumped to 161.72 Br and held there, widening the gap with Global Bank to about 2.10 Br. That was not the same as a devaluation.

The Central Bank’s indicative daily rate is a weighted average of the previous day's interbank transactions, a reference rather than a compulsory price or a retail bid. The jump could mirror where the trades occurred and how they were weighted.

The Brewed Buck has not broken. Between August 8 and August 15, the commercial bank average moved by barely a quarter of one percent, with no sudden depreciation or broad widening of spreads. But price stability is not the same as market equilibrium.

The more telling story was that 160 Br, which only days ago separated cautious banks from aggressive ones, no longer divides much of anything. The industry migrated across it while the average barely moved.

PUBLISHED ON Aug 16,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1372]