FenanPay officially begins operation, with its official launch on Thursday. The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) granted the startup a commercialisation license to offer payment services, making it the latest fintech company to achieve such a feat in the country.
The startup has been testing its products for the past year since starting its pilot program in October 2024. During this time, it successfully completed over 2.5 million transactions totalling 1.5 billion Birr. It now enters the broader market with the audacious goal of facilitating easy, inexpensive, and inclusive digital payments.
BitNet Tech Solutions is a local technology company that developed FenanPay. With a starting capital of 5 million Birr, Biniam Negessu, the founder of DireTube, an Ethiopian media and entertainment website, co-founded the company with roughly a dozen shareholders.
Liberalisation of Ethiopia’s fintech landscape
Since 2020, when the NBE opened the industry to non-financial institution participants, the Payment Gateway Operator license has become the most sought-after license from the organisation.
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The NBE issued piloting permits to four companies in 2025 alone. As of right now, Ethiopia has eleven authorised Payment Gateway Operators. While the remaining operators are licensed exclusively for online payment gateways, six of these businesses are licensed for both POS services and online payment gateways.
However, only four authorised Payment Instrument Issuers (mobile money providers) exist, including M-Pesa and Telebirr.
However, Ethiopia’s fintech sector is still far less diverse than that of nations like Kenya, India, Nigeria, and South Africa, where the expansion of the fintech industry has brought about a wide range of cutting-edge goods and services.
A sizeable portion of Ethiopia’s payment gateway transactions originate from the betting sector alone, partly because the country has not adopted e-commerce.
FenanPay brings fresh solutions
FenanPay promises to provide fresh solutions to address this.
“We want to go beyond providing financial services. Our goal is to deliver holistic solutions for our partners and merchants. Beyond payments, we aim to address broader technology needs, including developing custom software,” said Biniam Negessu, Managing Director and Founder of FenanPay.
FenanPay, a latecomer to Ethiopia’s fintech industry, is attempting to make a name for itself by using a progressive pricing strategy. Depending on the size of the transaction, commission fees may even be as low as zero.
Additionally, the startup has revealed features for its merchant app that tackle the issues with the state of payment confirmations.
FenanPay merchants will have access to services like USSD payments, restaurant order management, event management, Telegram payment bots, and AI-based analytics.
With the official launch of FenanPay, Ethiopia’s fintech industry achieved yet another significant milestone.