Ethiopia’s Payment Switch Clears $8 Billion

EthSwitch, Ethiopia’s national payment switch, processed $8 billion (ETB 1.26 trillion) in interoperable digital transactions during the 2025/26 fiscal year, highlighting the rapid expansion of the country’s digital payments ecosystem.

Announcing its results for the year ended 30 June 2026, the company reported gross profit before tax of $16.5 million (ETB 2.6 billion) and processed 387 million interoperable transactions across its network.

The transaction mix reveals how Ethiopians are embracing digital payments. Person-to-person (P2P) transfers dominated, accounting for 242.6 million transactions worth $6.7 billion (ETB 1.06 trillion)—more than four-fifths of the total value processed during the year. ATM transactions reached 131.5 million, valued at $1.2 billion (ETB 189.2 billion), while point-of-sale (POS) payments totalled 3.9 million transactions worth $67.8 million (ETB 10.7 billion). Transactions through ETHQR, the country’s interoperable QR payment standard, exceeded 551,000, with a combined value of $43 million (ETB 6.8 billion).

The figures suggest that person-to-person transfers remain the primary driver of Ethiopia’s digital payments market, while merchant acceptance through POS terminals and QR payments is still at a relatively early stage. EthSwitch has previously acknowledged that many Ethiopians continue to use person-to-person transfers even when paying merchants, highlighting where the next phase of digital payments growth is likely to occur.

The fiscal year also marked a major milestone in Ethiopia’s payments infrastructure. EthSwitch completed the migration of all peer-to-peer transfers onto its EthioPay Instant Payment System (IPS), enabling real-time transfers between participating financial institutions. During the year, the platform processed more than one million P2P transactions in a single day for the first time, handling $32.3 million (ETB 5.1 billion)—its highest daily transaction value to date.

An instant payment system enables banks, mobile wallets and other financial institutions to settle transactions in real time, 24 hours a day, rather than through batch processing or delayed settlement. Built on Swiss fintech BPC’s SmartVista platform and launched earlier this year, EthioPay IPS connects 32 banks, 12 microfinance institutions and six other payment providers. The platform supports account-to-account transfers, wallet-to-wallet payments, interoperable QR transactions, request-to-pay functionality and recurring payments, replacing Ethiopia’s older real-time gross settlement system.

Yilebes Addis, Chief Executive Officer of EthSwitch, has described reaching one million daily transactions as evidence of the growing value of interoperable instant payments for financial institutions, businesses and consumers.

The company’s progress also received international recognition. EthSwitch said its instant payment platform was rated “mature” by the AfricaNenda Foundation—the highest category in the organisation’s State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems assessment. Together with technology partner BPC, the company also received The Asian Banker’s Best Financial Inclusion Technology Initiative in Africa award during a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur.

Beyond payments growth, the fiscal year saw EthSwitch launch its unified EthioPay brand, unveil a new five-year strategy covering 2026/27 to 2030/31, and host the second Ethiopian Digital Payment Conference, bringing together senior government officials and financial sector leaders.

EthSwitch is Ethiopia’s national payment switch, jointly owned by the National Bank of Ethiopia, commercial banks, microfinance institutions and payment service providers. Now in its second decade, the organisation has set a goal of becoming Africa’s leading payment network by 2035.

Its growth reflects broader changes within Ethiopia’s financial sector. Once one of Africa’s most cash-dependent and tightly controlled banking markets, the country has accelerated financial sector reforms in recent years, including allowing the birr to float in 2024 and opening the market to new entrants. The birr has depreciated by roughly 15% against the U.S. dollar over the past year, making dollar comparisons useful when assessing transaction growth.

The expansion also mirrors a wider continental trend. According to AfricaNenda, 36 instant payment systems were operational across 31 African countries in 2025, collectively processing approximately 64 billion transactions worth nearly $2 trillion in 2024. Ethiopia is emerging as one of Africa’s fastest-growing instant payments markets, even as more mature ecosystems such as Kenya’s M-Pesa and PesaLink continue to set benchmarks for digital payments. Looking ahead, national platforms such as EthioPay are expected to become key building blocks for cross-border payment initiatives under the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

For EthSwitch, however, the immediate opportunity lies at home. While person-to-person transfers continue to dominate transaction volumes, expanding merchant acceptance through QR payments and POS infrastructure represents the next phase of growth. The company’s new five-year strategy is expected to focus heavily on that transition as Ethiopia continues its shift from a cash-based economy to a real-time, interoperable digital payments ecosystem serving more than 120 million people.