The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has proposed $150 million as the licence fee for all mobile money operators who want to set up shop in the country.
This comes ten months after the Central Bank of Ethiopia announced that it would allow other mobile money services to operate in the country.
According to the draft signed by System Director Solomon Damtew, the fee is an “investment protection fee”, which is the amount paid by foreign investors who are interested in businesses exclusively reserved for domestic investors.
This also comes two years after Ethiopia ended its decade-long monopoly of the country’s telco industry.
In 2021, Ethiopia sold part of a 40% stake in the telecoms industry to Safaricom for $850 million. In October 2022, Safaricom became the second telco in the country, and days later, the telco announced that it had secured a licence to operate mobile money services in the country.
If this proposal passes, Safaricom will have to pay the $150 million fee in order to operate in the country.
Meanwhile, last Thursday, Ethiopia’s finance ministry announced that it is now looking to offload 45% of its stake in Ethio Telecom instead of the 40% it originally announced in 2021.
