Ethiopia’s digital finance sector gets new trade body

Ethiopia’s digital finance industry has entered a new phase with the formal launch of the Ethiopian Digital Financial Service Providers Association, a professional trade body backed by the European Union and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

The association, which began as an informal working group in 2022, has now been legally registered and accredited to represent 18 founding institutional members across the country’s growing digital finance ecosystem. Its members include commercial banks, payment switches, aggregators, payment gateways, microfinance institutions and mobile money operators.

Yoseph Kibret, chairperson of the association, said the new body will help strengthen coordination among industry players, provide a unified voice in policy discussions and support capacity building for members. He said the group’s main goal is to deepen collaboration, promote innovation and advance financial inclusion.

The association’s formal launch comes after years of support under the Digital Financial Services for Resilience programme, known as DFS4Resilience, which is being implemented by UNCDF with backing from the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States. The four-year initiative is designed to expand access to digital finance for women, youth and entrepreneurs in 11 developing countries.

According to the programme, Ethiopia has received about 1.6 million dollars in support and technical assistance. The intervention has helped register more than 320,000 customers and 12,000 mobile money agents, trained 23,000 micro, small and medium enterprises, and delivered digital financial literacy training to more than 40,000 people.

Speaking at the launch, the European Union’s representative in Ethiopia said digitalization is one of the EU’s five main Global Gateway investment priorities. The EU said it is proud to support the programme as part of efforts to strengthen resilience through digital financial services.

The launch comes at a time when Ethiopia’s digital finance market is expanding rapidly. The country has moved from a largely cash-based environment to one with nearly 50 million active mobile money accounts, driven by reforms in the financial sector and broader mobile penetration.

By June 2025, cumulative digital transactions had reached 18.6 trillion birr, nearly double the previous year’s figure. Telebirr, launched by Ethio telecom in 2021, has played a central role in that growth, with 60.6 million users and 4.19 trillion birr in transactions during the 2025/26 fiscal year.

The wider ecosystem now includes more than 25 non-bank providers, among them Safaricom’s M-Pesa and local fintech firms such as Kacha, Arifpay and Chapa. Financial inclusion indicators have also improved, with adult account ownership rising from 35 percent in 2017 to 49 percent in 2025.

The association is led by a board that includes representatives from Premier Switch Solutions, Chapa Financial Technologies, Dashen Bank, ETIT and Kacha Digital Financial Services. Officials said 33 more organizations have already applied for membership, signaling growing interest in the new industry platform.