Wegagen Bank‘s prior partnership with BelCash has been replaced with a new mobile money service launched by E-Birr.
Users of the service, which was introduced on Tuesday, can use a smartphone app or the USSD code *602# to open wallet accounts, send money, and make payments.
At Wegagen Bank’s formal launch event in Shire, Tigray Regional State, Yehwalashet Zewdu, Deputy CEO of Enterprise Services, emphasised the service’s potential.
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E-Birr’s significant milestone
Founded in 2016, E-Birr Mobile Financial Services is a telecom value-added and mobile financial services company. The company offers E-birr, its mobile money platform, in collaboration with banking institutions such as the Cooperative Bank of Oromia and Kaffi Microfinance Institution.
E-Birr had 18.2 million subscribers as of June 2024 and had processed over 2 trillion birr in transactions.
Wegagen’s partnership with BelCash
Since 2018, Wegagen’s mobile money platform has been technologically partnered with Belcash Technology Solutions, a similar tech company. The two offered the platform under the HelloCash brand, which is comparable to Belcah’s partnerships with other organisations such as Lion Bank.
However, the HelloCash platform is being replaced by the relationship with E-Birr due to the former’s lack of financial viability, according to Fisseha Wube, Senior Marketing & Communications Officer of Wegagen Bank.
“As of November 4, 2024, Wegagen HelloCash has discontinued operations,” Fisseha said, adding that the partnership’s dissolution was due to its lack of financial viability.
The bank is in the process of transferring users and their data to the new platform.
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Wegagen Bank’s significant milestone
As of June 2024, Wegagen had 287K debit cardholders and 2.7 million mobile banking customers.
Wegagen, which has assets of over 74.6 billion birr, was able to raise its total income by 40 percent during the 2023–2024 fiscal year, reaching 9.8 billion birr, despite the macroeconomic instability that was prevalent at the time.
Additionally, the bank’s gross earnings increased 86 percent year over year to a record high of 2.2 billion birr. The bank has around 17,000 internet banking clients and 2.7 million mobile banking users.
The bank was listed on the recently established Ethiopia Securities Exchange (ESX) last week, making it the first bank in Ethiopia to do so.