Construction Guru Invests in Digital Payment
Sunpay Solutions Plc becomes one of the first two companies requested license from the National Bank of Ethiopia to operate their own Point of sales (POS) and ATM machines. Established with ETB100 million, Sunpay has planned to deploy 60,000 POS machines. The company is also in preparation to launch a digital financial service. The sister company of sunshine Investment Group that includes sunshine construction, planned to start operation by July 2021.
The private investment interest in digital payment services is hiking after the central bank introduced directives on Licensing and Authorization of Payment Instrument Issuers and Operators, back in April 2020. The central bank placed minimum paid up capital to establish such companies at ETB50 million, with individuals, other than government, capped not to hold more than 20pct of the shares. Apart from the operators, existing payment companies are also forced to re-establish as payment companies independent from banks.
Following the directives, Ethio telecom is also in preparation to launch its own mobile money platform. Ethio telecom has partnered with Huawei Technologies Ethiopia Plc, to design and kickstart the mobile money business.
