In April 2019 The Economist profiled Merkato trader Mengistu Maregne, who in 1980 joined an ekub, Ethiopia’s rotating savings-and-credit circle, drew a 4,000-birr pot first, and later credited the scheme with a house and a shoe shop.
Ekub popularity was not quaint folklore. It showed that formal banks and microfinance still failed small entrepreneurs who lacked collateral, patience for paperwork, or trust that a branch would treat them as clients rather than risks.
Abiy Ahmed’s early reform talk promised open markets and private banks. Informal finance kept proving that liquidity for ordinary traders often lived in weekly contributions among neighbors, not in lobby marble.
Kept as banking/diaspora archive, the Economist ekub piece still bites: when the birr is managed and credit is gated, people invent their own central bank on a Merkato stool.
Sources: The Economist