Forex Market Looks Stable But Tightly Managed

Apr 5 , 2026.

The striking feature of the official foreign-exchange market last week was not movement, but restraint. The notable non-news development of recent weeks was that lull. Governor Eyob Tekalegn (PhD) refrained from deploying his firepower, and the Central Bank stayed away from new auctions.

The average buying quote across the banks edged up from 153.94 Br on March 30 to 154.02 Br on April 4, 2026, while the average selling quote inched from 156.91 Br to 157.00 Br. Over the week, that amounted to a mere 0.08 Br gain on both sides of the board. For a market that can lurch by far more, it was a narrow move. The steadiness signalled that the official market remained less a venue for aggressive price competition than a tightly managed quoting environment in which banks adjusted in small increments.

The ranking of banks changed little. Oromia Bank has sat at the top of the market for months now, posting the highest selling rates and the highest average selling quote over the last week at 159.63 Br. Its average buying rate of 156.5 Br also placed it second overall, behind only the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE). But Oromia Bank’s position bounced on April 4, with its buying rate jumping to 157 Br on Saturday.

The Central Bank stood apart for a different reason. It posted the week's highest average buying rate at 156.57 Br, but because its buying and selling rates were identical, its average selling quote was the same, resulting in a ranking far lower than the rest of the market. It was also the week's clearest decliner, with the buying rate falling by 0.26 Br between March 30 and April 4. It was the only Bank to record a meaningful net decline over the week.

Away from those two outliers, the more important story was the gradual upward repricing among a handful of mid-tier movers. Awash Bank recorded the strongest cumulative gain, with its buying rate rising by 0.72 Br and its selling rate by 0.73 Br. Global Bank (Ethiopia) followed with a 0.55 Br increase in buying and a 0.56 Br rise in selling. The Bank of Abyssinia, Gadaa Bank and the state policy bank, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), rounded out the top five gainers, posting net buying increases of 0.32 Br, 0.26 Br and 0.23 Br, respectively.

At the other end of the board, Tsehay Bank remained the market’s conservative quoter throughout last week. It posted the lowest average buying rate, 152.99 Br, and the lowest average selling rate, 156.05 Br, and did not change either rate throughout last week. It was joined in that near-frozen posture by several other banks. Amhara, Berhan, Hijra, Oromia, Tsehay and Wegagen banks all ended the week where they began in net buying terms. However, Oromia Bank moved sharply midweek but finished unchanged on a net basis.

Most banks clustered in the low- to mid-153 Br range on the buying side at the start of the week, and in the mid-154 Br range by the end of the week. Selling rates showed the same compression, mostly orbiting the 156 Br to 157 Br range.

The key break in the sequence came on April 2. The average buying rate for the market dropped by 0.12 Br from the previous day, while the average selling rate fell by 0.12 Br. The next day, both rebounded more sharply than they had fallen, with average buying jumping 0.16 Br and average selling 0.17 Br. However, the swing was driven less by broad-based repricing than by abrupt adjustments at a few banks, especially Oromia Bank and the Central Bank.

By April 4, the market had largely stabilised again, with daily average changes nearly flat. Strip those two outliers out, and the rest of the market showed a cleaner appreciation in the official dollar price, with the average buying quote rising from 153.72 Br to 153.82 Br over the week and the average selling quote from 156.80 Br to 156.90 Br.

The overall average buying quote of 154.02 Br was almost one birr above the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s (CBE) 153.04 Br posted buying rate. That mattered because the CBE, like some rivals, was also offering top-up bonuses for dollars purchased. The headline board rate probably understated its effective acquisition price.

Among the large private banks, the contrast was revealing. Wegagen Bank left its buying rate unchanged over the week at 154.59 Br and its selling rate fixed at 157.68 Br. Zemen Bank raised its buying rate by 0.02 Br to 154.65 Br and its selling rate by 0.02 Br to 157.74 Br. Dashen Bank added 0.025 Br to reach 153.12 Br. Awash Bank was the exception. It began the week in the lower-middle range and ended it in the upper-middle range, making it the most assertive repricer among the larger private banks.

What emerged from the week was a market that was formally moving but functionally static. The Brewed Buck weakened slightly on the official board, yet the change was incremental and heavily concentrated in a handful of banks. The broad shape of the market did not alter. The absence of recent Central Bank auctions did not translate into instability on the official market. If anything, it exposed how tightly bound that board still is.

The official dollar market held together without fresh auctions, but it did so in a way that looked managed, narrow and highly synchronised.

PUBLISHED ON Apr 05,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1353]