Eth-Switch nets Record Profit
Eth-Switch S.C, Ethiopia’s national payments switch, declared ETB94.5 million revenue and ETB24.3 million net profit for 2019/20 Ethiopian financial year. Its profit surged by 93pct from previous year, following increasing use of electronic transaction under covid19 pandemic and government measurements to discourage cash-based transactions. Eth-Switch has been reporting loss for three consecutive years until last year.Eth-Switch is electronic payment company formed by consortium of commercial banks and MFIs, in 2011. The company facilitates interoperability of ATMs, which are run by individual banks. Since 2016, Eth-switch enabled interoperability of ATMs and POS Terminals operated by all banks. Its revenue is generated from service charges from facilitating the transactions.
During the fiscal year, Eth-Switch facilitated a total of 99 million overall transactions worth ETB87 billion. Interbank transactions stood at 27 million, of which 15 million were cash withdrawals, an increase of 17.5pct. Revenue from ATM interbank transaction grew by 61pct, becoming the major business stream.
Currently, it is rolling out projects to enable electronic P2P (person to person) transactions between regular account and wallet account holders with all financial service providers.