NBE Confers its Priorities with Bank Executives
ADDIS ABABA – The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) Governor Mamo Mihretu met with bank executives and board chairs to communicate the priorities outlined in NBE’s new three-year Strategy Plan.
Today’s meeting agenda also included assessing the performance and challenges of the banking industry, particularly in credit and foreign currency allocation.
The aim is to foster a unified vision and collaborative approach by all towards shared priorities, objectives, and practices, the NBE says.
The banking sector in Ethiopia has shown notable growth across multiple dimensions, including in accounts, deposits, credit, and accessibility.
The number of deposit accounts surged to 129.52 million in June 2023 compared to 98.59 million in June 2022.
Per NBE, the sector is also redirecting its focus towards the private sector and to extending financial support to the economy’s productive segments.
The Central Bank has been encouraging banks to expand their reach through digital financial services in a bid to extend their lending services to untapped segments of the economy.
“This encouragement is aimed at reaching unserved and underserved areas to enhance financial inclusivity in Ethiopia,” the central bank stated.
The biometric Digital Identification (ID), named as Fayda, is on the fast track to becoming a primary ID for all financial institutions in the country.
At the meeting, the National ID Program Office presented the “shared vision towards a better e-KYC” with the banks.
The Office and NBE jointly launched two initiatives in July to make Fayda a foundational ID to “increase financial inclusion by removing barriers to entry.”
The initiatives target onboarding all banking customers to the digital ID platform by the end of this 2023/24 fiscal year and the use of the Digital ID in the Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) protocol in the financial sector.
“Fayda is a critical digital infrastructure to realize the Digital Economy and it will play a key role to advance financial inclusion and to further enable digital financial services,” NBE insisted.
