Staff writer : Amanuel kindya
The National Bank of Ethiopia has announced that it has temporarily suspended issuing licenses to institutions that open foreign exchange bureaus through legal channels.
It is recalled that in October 2024, the National Bank announced that it had issued licenses to five domestic private foreign exchange bureaus.
This decision was made by the policy-making bank with the aim of gradually weakening the parallel foreign exchange market by narrowing the exchange rate difference with the black market, following the macroeconomic reform.
Accordingly, it is recalled that Dugda Fidelity Investment PLC, Ethio Independent, Global Independent, Robust Independent and Yoga foreign exchange bureaus have been granted licenses by the National Bank.
So, before introducing other new institutions to the market, how are these foreign exchange bureaus performing? The National Bank announced that it has stopped issuing new licenses in order to assess the situation.
Since these institutions have never operated banking operations before and are entering the market for the first time, they have brought new procedures to the market and this situation requires an assessment of the results achieved in the past few months.
It is also known that the National Bank, which regulates the financial sector, requires each institution to deposit 15 million birr in capital and 30 million birr in a closed account as a contingency reserve to open an office.
