Flutterwave has announced a partnership with Amole - Ethiopia’s largest mobile Digital Wallet platform. The partnership will facilitate money transfer into Ethiopia through Amole, to Amole Wallet, bank accounts and cash pickup locations at over 2,500 locations across the country.
"We are delighted to be collaborating with Amole to enable digital remittances and cash pickup into Ethiopia...Our collaboration will ensure that Ethiopian businesses are getting paid from all over the world, opening massive opportunities for business growth, a goal we are passionate about. This is just the beginning, and we hope to deepen the discussions around our partnership to the benefits of Africans, everywhere.” Olugbenga Agboola
Amole provides digital payments capabilities to its customers and access to digital products and services to enable users to complete important transactions at their convenience.
Flutterwave claims that the new partnership "will serve the Ethiopian economy by making diaspora remittances easier for over 8M members of the Ethiopian Diaspora that remit over $ 5 Billion annually to Ethiopia. The partnership, according to Flutterwave, will enable International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) and businesses on Flutterwave as well as Barter by Flutterwave users send money into Ethiopia.
“We are happy to partner with Flutterwave in delivering crucial forex that will support both our customers and Ethiopia. This partnership will play an important role in delivering even more value to our diaspora community, linking them to their country with more opportunities for global eCommerce in the near future.” Asfaw Alemu, CEO of Dashen Bank.
Ethiopia has an inferior remittances service - manual paperwork and delays making it challenging and time-consuming for the diaspora community. The partnership provides a solution to all these problems by providing instant delivery of funds to the receiver at no fee, with more control of where and how to send money, including transparency from a regulatory standpoint.
"We are very excited to work with Flutterwave and leverage our combined technologies to broaden our offering to the Ethiopian Diaspora community, our customers and merchants to enable cross-border remittance and commerce. At Amole, we are increasingly focused on cashless and eCommerce payments. Our combined efforts in enabling seamless and interoperable remittance and eCommerce payments will drive much desired financial inclusion in Ethiopia.” Yemiru Chanyalew, CEO Moneta Technologies
Financial inclusion is a problem in the region. According to a report by the National Bank of Ethiopia, over 75% of Ethiopia’s population is unbanked, while nearly 40% of all bank branches are in the capital city Addis Ababa. The partnership can boost financial inclusion in the region because financial services are extended to underserved communities by facilitating remittances from diaspora Ethiopians.
Thus, users of the service will have the option to collect cash from any of Amole’s 2,500 authorized agent locations.
Using The New Service
Making payment is very easy, users abroad can make payment by inputting the details of the receiver in Ethiopia, the payment destination (Amole digital wallet, bank account, or cash pickup location anywhere in Ethiopia), and the security question and answer with which the receiver can access the funds if the preferred payment destination is via an Amole authorized agent.
Ethiopia in focus
GDP: $95.913 Billion (2019 estimates)
Population: 112,078,730 (2019 estimates)
GDP per capita: $855
