ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA - Ethiopia's central bank will allow locally-owned non-financial institutions to start offering mobile money services as it seeks to boost non-cash payments in the country, it said. The new directive would allow Ethio Telecom, as an Ethiopian-owned company, to move into mobile money. But without further changes to the regulations, they will remain unable to offer mobile financial services business, analysts said. "This directive effectively excludes foreign fin-tech and telecom companies from reaping the business benefits," Bahakal Abate, a corporate lawyer in Addis Ababa, told Reuters. In February, Ethiopia delayed the award of two telecoms licenses to multinational companies.

Source: Ethiopian News April 02, 2020 11:15 UTC