​​Mobile Money in Ethiopia - A Diagnostic Report

Ethiopia has opened more than 135 million mobile wallets and grown its agent network fifteen-fold in four years, yet fewer than one in ten adults holds a mobile money account and only 0.4% rely on one as their sole financial account, against roughly 20% across Sub-Saharan Africa, which is the question this diagnostic sets out to answer. Drawing on Global Findex 2025, a national demand-side survey by UNCDF, World Bank panel data and supply-side reporting from the National Bank of Ethiopia and EthSwitch, it traces mobile money's contribution through the access, usage and quality stages of the financial inclusion pathway and finds that Ethiopia's real gains have been mostly bank-led, with the mobile wallet largely adopted as a second instrument by people who already held an account rather than as a first account for those who did not. The report profiles who remains outside the system, examines where the chain breaks between opening an account and using one, compares Ethiopia against India, Senegal, Pakistan and Brazil, and sets out eight recommendations for providers, regulators and development partners.