Dashen Bank Expands Digitization En Route to Historic 6.4 Billion Profits

Ethiopia's second-largest private commercial bank, Dashen Bank, reported a record profit for the fiscal year, defying economic headwinds and disruptions to global trade.

The Bank's net profit soared by 26.8% to 6.4 billion Birr, fueled by strong growth in deposits and total assets. Deposits surged 26.9% to 145.9 billion Birr, while total assets climbed 27% to 183.7 billion Birr. 

During the 31st ordinary shareholder meeting held at Millennium Hall, CEO Asfaw Alemu highlighted that the bank navigated a challenging landscape marked by regulatory hurdles and geopolitical tensions while still concluding a profitable fiscal year. 

The bank achieved a 30.9 billion birr growth in deposits reaching 145.9 billion birr, reflecting a 26.9% year-on-year increase. The Islamic Financial Banking (IFB) division also performed strongly, contributing 11.1 billion birr in deposits, a 37.2% increase from the previous year. 

Additionally, Dashen Bank secured $40 million from British International Investment (BII) and the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO), along with another $40 million trade finance guarantee facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to bolster support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in import-export activities. Despite facing a foreign exchange crunch, the bank managed to secure a total of $967 million in foreign exchange during this period. 

Since the launch of Dashen’s partnership with Ethio Telecom in the digital lending space in late 2022, the bank has been able to provide 1,306,158 customers with micro-credit of 8.6 billion birr and collect micro-savings of 474 million birr.

During the fiscal year, the bank implemented the MasterCard prepaid card project and successfully put the system into production. Several digital service upgrades were also implemented, including contactless capability for VISA and MasterCard on GRG ATMs.