Ethio Telecom has signed a partnership agreement with the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration (MoTRI) to enable the ministry’s service payments digitally via its mobile money service Telebirr.
It is noted that the agreement will allow traders to pay for services like commercial registration, trade license, and trade name-related service fee payments without any inconvenience using Telebirr.
“The digital payment system will help us to avoid corruption and increase customer satisfaction, beyond providing a fast and convenient payment system,” said Gebremeskel Challa, Minister of Trade and Regional Integration.
He added that the ministry is currently providing its customers with 13 different services related to commercial registration and trade licenses online.
There are around 2.7 million registered merchants under the Ministry and it is delivering services online since July 2022.
“Customers are expected to visit www.etrade.gov.et, log in with their account, select service type, fill the application form online and use the payment order number they receive, and easily settle the service fees via Telebirr App or USSD,” disclosed MoTRI.
In the past four months, around 270 thousand customers have utilized the online commercial registration and trade license service, among 2.7 million registered merchants of the Ministry.
Telebirr included integrated digital financial services in its mobile money service in August. The new digital financial services include Telebirr Endekise (Telebirr pocket), an overdraft service; Telebirr Mela (Telebirr Solution), a microcredit service; and Telebirr Sanduq (Telebirr box) is a saving scheme.
The information from the telecom operator shows that Telebirr digital payment system has acquired a subscriber base of 24.9 Million, 101 master agents, 87 thousand agents, and 23,000 merchants to date. The platform has been integrated with 16 banks to transfer money from bank to Telebirr and with 13 banks to transfer money from Telebirr to banks and over 101.1 billion ETB has been transacted so far.
