Kacha Digital Financial Service, the first Ethiopian private mobile money service, joins the national e-payment network Ethswitch.
Kacha and the national e-payment service Ethswitch reached an agreement to work together on Aug 30 at the signing ceremony held in the Addis Ababa Hilton hotel.
Kacha is the first private mobile money service provider licensed by the National Bank of Ethiopia(NBE) to provide digital financial services, especially for the "unbanked society in Ethiopia". Kacha is established by 13 Ethiopian investors with a capital of 200 million ETB.
“Ethswitch is not established for profit, but rather to create interoperability among financial institutions and to provide easy, affordable, reliable, and efficient e-payment financial services to consumers through these institutions,” said Yilebes Addis, CEO of Ethswitch at the signing ceremony.
He also mentioned that the prime aim of Ethswitch is to achieve interoperability of ATM, POS, mobile banking, and other related online financial services among all financial service providers.
Ethswitch has enabled the integration of ATM services operated by all banks in 2016 supporting customers to easily withdraw money from different banks even though they don’t have a bank account with that bank.
Abraham Tilahun, the CEO of Kacha Financial Service said Kacha is different from other financial service providers as its prime target is to address the unbanked society in Ethiopia.
All banks and microfinance institutions are members of the national payment, Ethswitch.
“As all financial institutions are members of Ethswitch, joining Ethswitch enables Kacha to be connected with all banks,” Abraham said.
He also added that reaching an agreement to work together with Ethswitch is a great opportunity for customers of Kacha as they can easily transfer money from Kacha to all other banks and from other banks to Kacha.
“As the underlying mandates of Ethswitch are contributing to modernizing the national payments system and creating convenient, easy, and affordable service to customers through financial institutions, any licensed bank or other financial service providers have the right to join Ethswitch," said Yilebes.
Financial institutions are allowed to own a 5% share in the national payment. Kacha has also joined Ethswitch with the same ownership share.
Kacha will provide various financial services including opening wallet accounts, cashing in and out, card payments, and other services
Kacha financial service share company will contribute to facilitating and making financial transactions easy, affordable and accessible to customers, according to Abraham.
