Data from the National Bank of Ethiopia shows that 1.7 trillion Birr were transferred electronically in the first half of the 2015 fiscal year.
Solomon Damtu, director of the bank’s payment system monitoring and development directorate, claims that over the previous four years, the National Bank has also issued licenses to other institutions in addition to financial institutions.
According to reports, 1.7 trillion Birr was transferred over banks and online financial service providers in a six-month period.
Additionally, one of the digital banking services, mobile banking, is said to be used by 22.3 million people at this time.
The director asserted that he was able to increase access to finance from 35% to 45% over the previous two years.
After the payment system was recently opened to foreign companies, M-PESA has been given permission to function as a foreign provider of digital financial services.
In return for the license, the Ethiopian government expects to receive 150 million dollars from M-PESA.