Shega Media

In 2010, Solomon Damtew joined the National Bank of Ethiopia as a young payment-systems expert. The system he entered barely resembles the one he leaves behind. Mobile banking was a novelty. Ethiopia had no real-time settlement backbone and no national digital payments strategy. Sixteen years later, mobile money accounts have grown to above 150 million, mobile banking accounts to over 50 million, and annual digital transaction values reached 18.5 trillion Birr last year. Solomon was there for much of that transformation. Now, at 37, he is leaving the NBE. But the harder part of Ethiopia's digital payments story may only be beginning. Read the full article. https://shorturl.at/fO4hR

Ethiopia's 2026/27 federal budget came to 2.34tn Birr, a fifth larger than last year. Not every institution shared equally in that growth. Here are the eleven that gained the most.

Issue 251 of Shega Weekly, “Official Carousels,” is here. A week of institutional resets, and a question running beneath them: when Ethiopia rewrites the rules, what actually changes? This week: • 🛡 New cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructure • 📈 ESX founding CEO Tilahun Esmael Kassahun steps down • 🏛 Addis Ababa moves to rewrite its procurement rules • 💳 CNETPay receives an NBE payment operator licence • ⚖️ 91 people detained in a widening economic crime investigation • 🌍 EthSwitch opens an international settlement account for global card services Plus: 📍 Signal: Ethiopia prepares to rewrite three ageing IP laws, but the harder problem may be enforcement Across the board, a familiar tension: new rules, new institutions, new infrastructure and enduring questions about enforcement capacity. Read the full issue:https://shegaweekly.substack.com/p/issue-251-official-carouselsBB

Ethiopia is preparing to rewrite three of its core intellectual property laws, some of which were drafted before smartphones, mobile money and the digital economy existed. The reforms are overdue. But the more interesting question is whether outdated legislation is actually the main constraint on innovation. Founders often point to something harder to legislate: weak enforcement. Rights may exist on paper, but if infringement cases rarely reach court, judges lack specialist expertise and remedies take too long, stronger laws will only go so far. Ethiopia has also joined the Madrid Protocol and Paris Convention, bringing its IP framework closer to the international system it hopes to join through the WTO. The challenge now is making the machinery work. A better proclamation can create a right. It cannot, by itself, create the institution capable of enforcing it. Read this week's Signal :https://shorturl.at/XLp2C

The Ethiopian Bankers Association’s Credit Committee spent 41 pages arguing manufacturers are not being denied credit. Yet NBE data shows manufacturing at just 16.2% of lending, while trade takes 41.5%. Both can be true. The Committee points to a one-off accounting shift at CBE and real issues, weak studies, borrowed equity, and misused loans. It even admits credit officers reject viable projects they don’t understand. But the deeper question remains: do banks see manufacturing as worth the risk? Lifting the credit cap doesn’t answer that. Private credit was already growing at ~50% a year. Read the full analysis for some answers: https://shega.co/news/ethiopia-wants-factories-what-s-holding-the-money-back

Ethiopia’s telecom sector has crossed a quiet but decisive threshold. For the first time, mobile data and internet revenue (31.1%) have overtaken voice (23.5%) at Ethio telecom. It is a structural shift, not a seasonal one. Behind the numbers is a deeper transformation: 4G now reaches 1,200 cities, 5G spans 33, and a 23,000 km fiber backbone is reshaping access. Smartphones, fintech, and public digital infrastructure like Fayda are turning connectivity into a daily economic utility. Partner Content:https://shega.co/news/data-overtakes-voice-ethio-telecom-s-milestone-signals-a-new-digital-era

A 502 billion Birr budget that has grown several-fold over the past few years, is now confronting procurement systems that auditors say are already strained. Nearly 2 billion Birr in uncollected receivables. Documented violations. Gaps in oversight. A new draft directive aims to fix this with six major shifts: splitting procurement authority, devolving discretion, raising tender thresholds, introducing leasing, enabling e-procurement, and expanding local supplier preferences. The trade-off is familiar: efficiency versus oversight. If it works, audits should improve and delays should fall. If it doesn’t, discretion may simply expand faster than accountability. Read the Analysis:https://shega.co/news/addis-ababa-is-rewriting-how-it-spends

Techurate Systems has unveiled an AI-native platform built around task-specific agents, promising to compress product deployment timelines from years to weeks. From onboarding to credit scoring and fraud detection, the model unbundles core banking functions into modular intelligence layers. The pitch lands at a moment when digital payments infrastructure is rapidly being deployed across Ethiopia. The question is no longer whether banks will digitize, but how far they will automate. Read more:https://shorturl.at/KubXr

EdTech can reshape learning, but in Ethiopia its impact remains uneven. At June’s EdTech Mondays, the key message was clear. The constraint is not devices, but readiness. Teachers come first. Without the ability to adapt tools for diverse classrooms, especially for students with disabilities, technology risks reinforcing exclusion. Access gaps persist. Connectivity remains uneven and often unaffordable, while policy, curriculum, and innovation are still out of sync. Ethiopia’s EdTech challenge is less about technology and more about alignment. Without a deliberate focus on excluded learners, investment risks widening existing divides. Read more:https://shega.co/news/ethiopia-s-ed-tech-push-needs-crosscutting-alignment-not-just-access

Issue 250 of Shega Weekly, “Phantom Triumphs,” is here. A quiet milestone for us and a week that reflects it. Less about breakthroughs, more about what sits beneath them. This week: • ⛽️ OLA–TotalEnergies deal faces regulatory scrutiny • ✈️ Bishoftu airport bid delayed as USD 9bn financing is arranged • ⚖️ Hulu Sport wins in court, but remains shut • ⛏️ USD 4bn mining deal collapses amid regulatory and geopolitical strain • 💵 Small denomination birr notes quietly fade out • 🌍 Digital remittance expands, but with important caveats Plus: 📊 Policy Monitor (July): tracking structural shifts across monetary policy, trade, and taxation 📍 Signal: an auction where demand clustered narrowly, and most units saw none at all Across the board, a familiar pattern: decisions made, outcomes announced, but resolution remains elusive. Read the full issue:https://shegaweekly.substack.com/p/issue-250-phantom-triumphs

A cold July morning, 264 bidders, and a clear signal: Addis Ababa’s latest commercial auction appears peculiar. Demand clustered hard. Three shops in Bisrate Gebriel drew over a third of all bidders, with prices diverging sharply even for identical units. Meanwhile, 67 units in Sidist Kilo, 85% of the auction by count, received not a single offer. This is bid rent theory in practice. Location still dictates value. But inside the hotspots, something else is at play: uncertainty, competition, and the psychology of sealed bids. The bigger question now is not what was bid, but what will be signed. Read the Analysis:https://shorturl.at/wuXHE

If you invest, operate, advise, or build in Ethiopia, July 2026 brought quieter but structural policy shifts. Shega’s fourth Policy Monitor tracks what changed: • NBE has largely shifted to an interest-rate-based framework, but with credit still growing above 45%, transmission is the real test • University leadership is being restructured with competitive selection, 40% strategy weighting, and fixed six-year terms • The Ethiopia–Kenya border trade regime launched at Moyale, small in scale but key for AfCFTA data and future growth • Addis Ababa introduced construction minerals licensing, formalizing an informal market facing a 50% supply gap • A 5% hotel tax created a new city revenue stream tied to Addis’s diplomatic and business role • Residential rents were capped at 11.5%, despite supply remaining the main constraint Less about new reforms, more about whether institutions can execute. Policy Monitor focuses on what changed, what it means, and what to watch next.

A Century-Old Name Enters a New Market: Bank of Abyssinia Lists on the ESX Every listing is a statement of belief in the future. On July 28, 2026, Bank of Abyssinia made that statement by joining the Ethiopian Securities Exchange under the ticker BOAX, marking another step in the country’s evolving capital market. The move opens the bank’s ownership to a broader investing public while reinforcing its role in financing long-term growth. With a strong operating history and an extensive footprint, BoA enters the market as a familiar institution now embracing the discipline of public ownership. Early trading signaled strong demand, underscoring a wider shift toward transparency, governance, and investor engagement. As the Exchange deepens, each new listing matters, and few arrive with the scale and recognition that Bank of Abyssinia brings. Partner Content. Read more:https://shorturl.at/AEXST

A 10 birr note now costs roughly 6 US cents to produce and is worth about 6 US cents to spend. That arithmetic is part of the reason National Bank of Ethiopia has all but stopped printing it, and why kiosk owners in Addis Ababa spend part of every day taping ragged notes back together rather than refusing them. Shega traces how currency redesign, a falling birr, and thin foreign reserves converged to make Ethiopia's smallest notes uneconomical to replace, and what that means for the millions who still depend on cash. Read the full piece:https://shorturl.at/QfdnJ

Ethiopia’s digital remittance landscape has reached an inflection point. What began with a few platforms in 2021 is now a regulator-backed ecosystem of banks, fintechs, and mobile money providers channeling diaspora inflows more formally. Recent reforms, including forex liberalization, planned outbound payment channels, and a regulatory sandbox, are expanding what these platforms can do. The shift is clear: remittance services are evolving into broader financial gateways. Yet constraints remain. The Birr still trades at multiple rates across formal and informal markets, sustaining parallel channels. While digital platforms improve access and transparency, they cannot resolve deeper structural imbalances. The opportunity is real, but so are the limits. This AKOFADA analysis unpacks the nuances. Read more: https://shorturl.at/OfhVS

Issue 249: Cyber Cracks Ethiopia’s policy landscape is shifting, but not always in sync with market realities. In Issue 249 of Shega Weekly: • 🚫 NBE reaffirms its ban on virtual assets • 📊 T-bill auctions target 197 billion Birr as yields ease • 🤝 Fintechs organize amid regulatory rewrites • ⚖️ Courts reopen pricing questions in housing • 🏠 A rent ceiling raises more questions than it answers At the center is a recurring theme: frameworks built for one moment are now being tested by another. This week’s Signal unpacks the 11.5% rent cap, and what it reveals about inflation, regulation, and timing in Addis Ababa’s housing market. Read more: https://shorturl.at/W6IFN

Addis Ababa’s 11.5% rent ceiling for 2026/27 looks like textbook evidence-based policy: modelled forecasts, aligned with observed trends, and set below the legal maximum. But the foundation beneath it has already shifted. The benchmark assumed inflation below 10%. Today, headline inflation is nearing 14% and food inflation has crossed 15%. The result is a ceiling that sits below the cost pressures facing landlords and the lived reality of tenants. With over half of households already rent-burdened, the question is no longer whether the cap is justified, but whether it is calibrated to current conditions, or anchored to a scenario that no longer exists. Read More:https://shorturl.at/aQwKH

As digital learning tools continue to emerge, regulatory bottlenecks and fragmented policymaking often slow their path to the classroom. The July 2026 edition of EdTech Mondays Ethiopia explores how licensing reform, regulatory sandboxes, and cross-government collaboration can unlock innovation while maintaining accountability. Featuring voices from regulation, finance, and the startup ecosystem, the discussion highlights a critical shift from rigid oversight to adaptive systems that enable responsible scale. 📻 Airing tonight at 8:10 p.m. EAT on Fana FM 98.1 + nationwide stations. Tune In Read more:https://shorturl.at/jHPdX

Ethiopia’s digital economy has produced two parallel success stories, albeit one more than the other, which are conspicuous in their isolation. One is a rapidly expanding digital financial layer, anchored by 60 million Telebirr wallets and 18.5 trillion Birr in annual transactions. The other is an emergent agri-tech ecosystem, mapping farmland and refining farmer advisory systems. Each has matured independently. Neither compounds the other’s gains. The implications are stark. Agriculture generates about a third of GDP and supports two-thirds of employment, yet receives only 2% of formal credit. This reflects less a performance gap than a failure of alignment, with enabling systems evolving in silos. What is required is not more technology, but synthesis, allowing farm-level data to inform financial decisions. Read more:https://shorturl.at/hnFaX

Ethiopia's financial inclusion conversation often focuses on access: more accounts, agents, and products. But our latest AKOFADA infographic highlights another gap: the skills and confidence to use these tools safely. A few numbers stood out: 92% understand inflation, but only 39% understand its impact on loan costs. Among internet users, 32% know how to block a lost or stolen phone, while nearly half reuse passwords. And while 66% plan a budget, just 12% have insurance. Expanding access matters, but building financial capability alongside it is just as important. This infographics is developed by Shega under the AKOFADA Project, in coordination with UNCDF Ethiopia. See the high-resolution infographic 👇 https://digitalfinance.shega.co/insights/infographics/infographicFinancial-Literacy-and-Capability-Deep-Dive-in-Ethiopia #Shega #AKOFADA #FinancialLiteracy #FinancialInclusion #DigitalFinance #Ethiopia #UNCDF