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Mobile Based Digital Financial Services in Ethiopia

Published By

Team Shega

Published By

01 October 2025

This key report, produced by Shega as part of the AKOFADA project, examines the evolution, challenges, and opportunities of mobile-based digital financial services in Ethiopia, with a focus on Mobile Banking and Mobile Money. As the second issue in Shega’s customer-facing technologies series, it highlights how mobile channels are reshaping financial access and inclusion, particularly for underserved communities.
 

The study reveals rapid growth in both platforms, with Mobile Banking accounts reaching 39.6 million and handling ETB 6.7 trillion in transactions by 2024, while Mobile Money expanded to 107.5 million accounts, driven largely by simplified onboarding and telco-led services like Telebirr and M-PESA. Despite this growth, usage patterns reveal a critical overlap: many Mobile Money users already have bank accounts, raising questions about its effectiveness in reaching the unbanked. Agent network weaknesses, high account dormancy, and rural and gender disparities further limit its inclusiveness.

 

The report highlights persistent barriers such as limited smartphone affordability, weak digital literacy, trust deficits, and regulatory bottlenecks. It underscores the need for reforms that strengthen interoperability, reduce costs, simplify KYC, and expand inclusive digital literacy programs, especially for women and rural users. At the same time, the report points to major opportunities: Ethiopia’s youthful and mobile-connected population, the opening of the banking sector to foreign players, and new cross-sector collaborations linking mobile money with global payment networks and digital ID initiatives. 

 

Overall, the report positions mobile-based financial services as central to Ethiopia’s digital finance journey, while emphasizing that inclusive design, regulatory innovation, and public-private collaboration are essential to ensuring that growth translates into meaningful and equitable financial access.

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Team Shega