{"id":282941,"date":"2019-07-31T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEGFtHXwqW5UU0rFnV_8t7tMqFggEKg0IACoGCAowt6AMMLAmMLT5lwM?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:28:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:28:30","slug":"ethiopia-opens-banking-sector-diaspora-dual-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/282941","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia opens its banking sector to diaspora and dual nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia's parliament passed a bill in late July 2019 that opened the banking and finance sector to Ethiopian-born citizens who hold foreign nationalities.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

The National Bank of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa in April 2008 (Shagada \/ Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

The House of Peoples' Representatives approved the amendment to the Banking Business Proclamation unanimously in an emergency session after MPs had gone on recess, The Reporter Ethiopia and New Business Ethiopia reported.<\/p>\n

Lemlem Hadgo, chair of the Revenues, Budget and Finance Committee, said the law would let the diaspora invest in banks and transfer knowledge into the financial services sector. Reuters put the diaspora at about five million people and linked the move to reforms aimed at boosting scarce foreign-exchange reserves.<\/p>\n

Until then, Ethiopian-born foreign nationals had been treated as foreigners and barred from owning bank shares. About two years earlier the National Bank of Ethiopia had ordered private banks and insurers to reclaim diaspora share certificates and auction them to the public.<\/p>\n

The new law let diaspora investors buy shares in existing banks, form new banks including interest-free banks, and start lending businesses. Share purchases in Ethiopia were to be settled in birr like those of other Ethiopian shareholders, while payments through foreign holding structures had to be made in acceptable foreign currency.<\/p>\n

The bill also opened room for private digital financial services and gave the central bank more power to regulate interest-free deposits and advertising. Addis Fortune noted that parliament framed the opening as consistent with Ethiopia's WTO accession talks.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> Reuters<\/a>, Yonas Abiye, The Reporter Ethiopia<\/a>, New Business Ethiopia<\/a>, Addis Fortune<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia’s parliament passed a bill in late July 2019 that opened the banking and finance sector to Ethiopian-born citizens who hold foreign nationalities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7911,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/national-bank-of-ethiopia-2008.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bBz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282941"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837814,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282941\/revisions\/837814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}