Financial Services

Ethiopia has enjoyed impressive economic growth in the last twenty years. Even though Ethiopia’s financial services sector is still in its infancy (compared to other developed economies), it has nonetheless been one of the beneficiaries of the sustained economic growth and both public (government) and private banks have experienced rapid expansion. With this expansion comes the need to modernize existing/legacy infrastructure (and, in most if not all cases, the absolute necessity to deploy new ones) and take advantage of new customer engagement models. At the same time, financial services firms find themselves in a tight spot trying to juggle competing and conflicting industry imperatives: finding new ways of providing value-added services, capitalizing on new revenue opportunities, long existing operational inefficiencies, dealing with disparate systems and legacy technology and increasing security concerns. With this backdrop, customers of these financial services firms still expect and demand seamless customer experience across all delivery channels (branch offices, ATMs, online and mobile or telephone banking).

Unlike conventional banks, MFIs are intended to provide basic financial services as well as some non-financial services with the specific mandate to serve the diverse socio-economic needs of the population, especially the non-banked and the those that don’t have neither the access nor the ability to meet the collateral requirements of formal financial institutions. Similar to the tremendous growth of banks in the last two decades, the microfinance sector in Ethiopia has grown significantly but, currently, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) haven’t been able to capture their true potential for various reasons among which is the lack of technical expertise to streamline their operations and reach out to the their target market. Among the challenges that MFIs face are low outreach capability to the intended target segment of the population, limited product portfolio and services diversification, very weak internal control and reporting systems and the lack of leveraging technological advancements to tackle major problems.

Finally, insurance (and, micro insurance), as a central component of the financial services sector, is another crucial aspect of the development of Ethiopia’s economy and an area of the financial services industry that has a very promising opportunity in Ethiopia. Like many developed (and some developing) countries that have adopted insurance as a core vehicle of the financial service sector, Ethiopia has started to benefit from the insurance sector. With the rapidly growing population of the country and the diverse product services available to the population, it is an area that is poised to provide significant economic growth to the country.

As a participant in the financial technology (FinTech) industry that uses new technology, applications, processes, products and business models to bring innovation, USi is perfectly positioned to enable its customers to compete in the marketplace in the delivery of next generation financial services and realize their full potential. Together with our partners, USi is continuously innovating to provide the technology and knowhow to help financial services providers with the capability to improve their product offerings, operational excellence and value to their customers.