More than 157 million mobile money accounts have been registered in Ethiopia, but fewer than 15% are actively utilized across the country's digital financial channels, according to the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE).
Solomon Damtew Metaferia, Director of the Banking and Payment Systems Directorate at the NBE, disclosed the figures on Wednesday in Addis Ababa while addressing the 29th Connected Banking Summit and Innovation and Excellence Awards 2026.
Activation rates vary across digital financial services, Solomon explained, noting that mobile banking records relatively higher usage, while mobile money and agent-based accounts register lower engagement. Overall, the fact that the active user rate remains below 15% indicates a significant gap between account registration and actual usage.
Solomon also pointed to persistent disparities in financial access, particularly between urban and rural areas, stating that rural residents still travel an average of six hours to reach basic banking services.
To tackle these challenges, the NBE is currently implementing the National Digital Payments Strategy 2.0. Solomon noted that the first national strategy was instrumental in establishing the digital financial ecosystem, introducing non-bank financial service providers, and building interoperability infrastructure. Today, Ethiopia is home to more than 35 non-bank digital financial service providers.
Digital transaction volumes have also seen exponential growth. Transactions across the national financial ecosystem reached 33 trillion Br during the current fiscal year, a massive leap compared to 4.7 trillion Br in mid-2023 and 240 billion Br in 2020, Solomon stated.
Looking ahead, the NBE's strategy outlines the establishment of a Digital Public Infrastructure framework by 2030. This blueprint encompasses real-time payment systems, a national digital identity architecture, and a data exchange layer.
The strategy further incorporates open APIs, cloud computing platforms, a shared fraud compensation fund, and forward-looking plans for a central bank digital currency, virtual assets, stable coins, and tokenization.
Consequently, the NBE's primary focus is shifting away from merely expanding the volume of digital accounts toward driving real, active usage and enhancing financial inclusion for underserved segments of the population.
