The African Development Bank’s Board of Directors has approved a $2.33 million grant to EthSwitch Share Company, a National Bank of Ethiopia-led initiative, for the modernization of its payments infrastructure.
The grant comes from the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility’s (ADFI) special fund, a pan-African project aimed at facilitating digital financial inclusion for the continent’s estimated 332 million unbanked people, 60% of whom are women.
The project, which includes the procurement and implementation of the appropriate payment system, would make it easier to design and use a variety of digital financial services (DFS), such as digital payment distribution for social care, pensions, and other government payments, e-commerce, transportation systems, and utility bills.
“An successful financial inclusion policy needs a robust digital payments system. The EthSwitch project is poised to change Ethiopia’s digital payments landscape by connecting the rails and laws, and ADFI is pleased to contribute to that impact.” Sheila Okiro, the ADFI Fund Coordinator, expressed her gratitude.
EthSwitch S.C. was legally founded in 2011 and is jointly owned by all of Ethiopia’s commercial banks as well as the Ethiopian National Bank. The country’s regulatory framework encourages switch modernization, and the organization is kept accountable by key stakeholders through a shareholding arrangement open to banks and microfinance institutions. Non-banks will be eligible to participate on a case-by-case basis, as defined by the Ethiopian National Bank.
ADFI and EthSwitch will work together with strategic industry experts and players to execute the EthSwitch project over a three-year span.
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