Ethiopia Issues Mobile Money Licence to Kenya's Safaricom 

Ethiopia has issued Kenya’s telecom giant Safaricom a licence to operate mobile money services, the first foreign firm to get such a permit in the populous nation. <br />Safaricom launched in August last year its operations in Ethiopia, which for years had been one of the largest closed market in the African continent. <br />The state-owned Ethio telecom had been the sole provider of telecom and mobile money services for a country of over 110 million people But Addis Ababa opened its market in 2021 for international bidders, granting a consortium led by Safaricom a licence to operate in the country. <br />The National Bank of Ethiopia says that the issuing of the mobile money licence reflected its ongoing objectives of “fostering financial innovation and inclusion in the Ethiopian market”.