CEO Firehiwot Tamiru says unbanked can power the economy
Ethiopia’s nationalised telco Ethio Telecom has launched three new mobile banking services under the motto Financial Service for All in a bid to level up the access to the finance system. The initiative is running in collaboration with Dashen Bank because at the moment 60% of the population have no access to a smartphone, reports All Africa.
The three services, Telebirr Mela, Tele birr Endekise and Telebirr Kuteba (Sanduk) include money transactions and Firehiwot Tamiru, Ethio Telecom’s CEO, claimed that during the last year alone Ethio Telecom has managed to register 2.2 million telebirr customers. Meanwhile the governor of Ethiopia’s national bank has praised Ethio Telecom for modernising the nation’s financial services and extending access through its digitisation of the Birr, the national currency.
Telebirr Mela is a credit service that brokers loans of up to 2,000 birr (€37) per day and up to 10,000 birr (€185) per month based on the history of a customer’s money transaction in the bank. Tele birr Endekise is a system built to enable a customer to overdraft up to 2,000 birr (€37) per day with a service charge to a customer when their telebirr balance is depleted during attempts to purchase goods. Telebirr Kuteba (Sanduk) is a programme that enables all customers to save and its limit starts at a penny, with or without interest, reports All Africa.
The launch in Addis Abeba was attended by the Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia, Yanager Dese, Minister of Planning and Development, Fitsum Asefa, President of Dashen Bank, Asfaw Alemu and high ranking government officials.
“Telebirr has benefited our customers to ease their daily activities when it comes to paying bills online,” said Ethio Telecom CEO Firehiwot Tamiru, (pictured above) “the app [telebirr] enables us to earn $1 miliion from international remittance and connects us with 37 countries.”
However, Telebirr was designed only for users who have smartphones, which ignores the majority of Ethiopians – some 60% of the total population of Ethiopia, according to the CEO. “That’s why Ethio-telecom chose to work with Dashen Bank to implement these financial services for all regardless of what cell phone people have,” said Tamiru.
Yinager Dessie, the governor of Ethiopian National Bank, said the computing of Ethiopia’s banks has been traditional for far too long and praised the joint efforts of the bank and the telco for taking the nation’s financial system to the next level. “The National Bank will render all-inclusive support to any bank which it is willing to do intend to join such digital services,” said Dessie.
Firehiwot said the digital financial programmes were designed to benefit the “forgotten” sections of the society who don’t have reliable incomes. An artificial intelligence system is be launched that will calculate the credit score of any individual wishing to borrow money without collateral loan to start their small business. “Since we target the destitute, the system will have a healthy economy in the country,” said Firehiwot.
Ethio-telecom has now 67.2 million customers, and is the second largest telecom operator in Africa and stands 25th of 778 telecom operators in the world.
“Dashen Bank is delighted to work with Ethio-telecom to launch this digital financial system that will serve the whole community in Ethiopia regardless of their income,” said Asfaw Alemu, the president of Dashen Bank, “our staffs have done all the necessary preparations to operate.”