EthSwitch Marks Major Advance in Instant Payment Systems with EthioPay Launch

Ethiopia’s national switch operator, EthSwitch, on Thursday evening unveiled a long-awaited overhaul of the country’s payment rails, officially launching an interoperable instant payment system known as EthioPay at Friendship Park in Addis Ababa. The payment infrastructure was first announced last week during the second national digital payment conference.

Developed over two years, the system enables same-day settlement for interbank transfers, replacing the Real Time Gross Settlement platform, which has long drawn criticism from banks and businesses for delays that constrained liquidity across the financial system.

Yelebes Addis, EthSwitch’s chief executive, said the launch would mark a turning point for Ethiopia’s payment ecosystem, which has leaned heavily on person-to-person transfers even for merchant transactions. EthioPay, he said, introduces structured payment channels designed for a broader and more complex economy.

Among the new capabilities are bulk payments, customer-to-government transactions, request-to-pay functions, QR-based payments, interoperable merchant dashboards, and expanded tools for e-commerce platforms.

“A shared payment infrastructure reduces costs while improving services,”  Yelebes said. “We expect banks to reduce additional charges.”

He said the system was built with future growth in mind, anticipating an influx of new players into Ethiopia’s financial sector in the coming years. Pointing to Nigeria, which has roughly six million active point-of-sale machines compared with Ethiopia’s estimated 20,000, Mr. Yelebes underscored the scale of untapped demand.

Affordability and access remain major constraints, he acknowledged. For a country of Ethiopia’s size, he estimated that at least three million POS machines would be needed to adequately serve the population.

“We have deployed an infrastructure capable of handling several thousand transactions in seconds,” he told Shega.

The launch comes as EthSwitch reports its strongest financial performance to date. For the fiscal year ending June 2025, the operator posted a gross profit of 1.4 billion birr, a 34 percent increase from the previous year. Interoperable transaction fees continued to anchor revenues. Person-to-person transfers generated 902.6 million Birr,  nearly half of operational income  more than doubling from the year before, while ATM transactions contributed 825.1 million Birr, accounting for roughly 46 percent.

Interbank transfers through mobile banking applications, ETHQR payments, and other services running on the EthioPay infrastructure will gradually adopt an orange color scheme, officials said, to help users distinguish the enhanced instant-payment features.

EthSwitch is jointly owned by all public and private banks operating in Ethiopia, along with the National Bank of Ethiopia, microfinance institutions, and licensed payment instrument issuers. Executives said the development and deployment of EthioPay required more than $30 million in investment.

Over the past fourteen years, the national switch has steadily expanded interoperability across the banking system. In its most recent assessment, the AfricaNenda Sustainable and Inclusive Instant Payment Systems report classified Ethiopia’s payment infrastructure as having progressed from basic toward more advanced levels of inclusivity, a shift that EthioPay is expected to accelerate.