Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company, has partnered with Amole, Ethiopia’s largest mobile Digital Wallet platform, to allow 8 million Ethiopians in Diaspora (who remit over $5 billion annually) to send money home instantly.
This was disclosed by Flutterwave in a statement seen by Nairametrics.
It stated, “The new partnership with Flutterwave will serve the Ethiopian economy by making diaspora remittances easier for over 8 million members of the Ethiopian Diaspora that remit over USD $5B annually to Ethiopia.
“International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) and businesses on Flutterwave as well as Barter by Flutterwave users can send money into Ethiopia via this partnership.
“The remittance service in Ethiopia today is seen by users to be expensive, with manual paperwork and delays making it challenging and time consuming for the diaspora community. This partnership solves these problems by providing instant delivery of funds to the receiver at no fee, with more control of where and how to send money, including transparency from a regulatory standpoint.”
Speaking on the partnership, Flutterwave Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, said, “We are delighted to be collaborating with Amole to enable digital remittances and cash pickup into Ethiopia. This is another significant milestone for payments in Africa as we work together to bridge the financial inclusion gap in the country and across the continent.
“Our collaboration will ensure that Ethiopian businesses are getting paid from all over the world, opening massive opportunities for business growth, a goal we are passionate about. This is just the beginning, and we hope to deepen the discussions around our partnership to the benefits of Africans, everywhere.”
Asfaw Alemu, CEO of Dashen Bank, said, “We are happy to partner with Flutterwave in delivering crucial forex that will support both our customers and Ethiopia. This partnership will play an important role in delivering even more value to our diaspora community, linking them to their country with more opportunities for global eCommerce in the near future.”
Yemiru Chanyalew, CEO Moneta Technologies, SC, said, “We are very excited to work with Flutterwave and leverage our combined technologies to broaden our offering to the Ethiopian Diaspora community, our customers and merchants to enable cross-border remittance and commerce. At Amole, we are increasingly focused on cashless and eCommerce payments. Our combined efforts in enabling seamless and interoperable remittance and eCommerce payments will drive much desired financial inclusion in Ethiopia.”
How it works
To make payment via this new service, a sender outside Ethiopia inputs the details of the receiver in Ethiopia, the payment destination (Amole digital wallet, bank account, or cash pickup location anywhere in Ethiopia), and the security question and answer with which the receiver can access the funds if the preferred payment destination is via an Amole authorized agent.
What you should know
The National Bank of Ethiopia stated that over 75% of Ethiopia’s population is unbanked, while nearly 40% of all bank branches are in the capital city, Addis Ababa.
“This collaboration will extend financial services to these underserved communities, by facilitating remittances from diaspora Ethiopians, hence expanding business opportunities for small and growing businesses in these communities. Subsequently, this will boost financial inclusion within the country as users of the service will have the option to collect cash from any of Amole’s 2,500 authorised agent locations.”
This is a Great victory for Ethiopians and defeat for state monopoly, Ethio-telecom, that kept Ethiopia the least connected and least developed in digitization of its economy