{"id":284593,"date":"2019-08-20T05:34:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T09:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=7745f8b0529dedf65fcf4883a9387ecb"},"modified":"2026-10-20T11:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T15:19:08","slug":"ethio-lease-first-foreign-financial-license-ethiopia-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/284593","title":{"rendered":"Ethio Lease became the first foreign-owned financial firm licensed in Ethiopia in 2019 and entered voluntary liquidation in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethio Lease became the first foreign-owned company to win a financial services license in Ethiopia in August 2019, but red tape still held back business finance, The Africa Report said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

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

The National Bank of Ethiopia licensed Ethio Lease, a unit of New York-based Africa Asset Finance Company, on Aug. 8, 2019 with initial capital of 400 million birr, the Ethiopian News Agency reported. The company planned to lease equipment from farm machinery to medical equipment and drilling rigs, with payments in birr.<\/p>\n

Ethio Lease obtained the license because \u201cwe were the last man standing,\u201d Frans Van Schaik, chairman and chief executive of the parent company, told The Africa Report. He said the process took almost two years. \u201cWe probably have as much a first mover disadvantage, in navigating a bureaucracy that is not used to having a leasing company around, as we have a first mover advantage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Economist Intelligence Unit said foreign leasing would speed up business financing but noted \u201cmajor bureaucratic hurdles.\u201d The World Bank\u2019s 2019 ease of doing business report ranked Ethiopia 159th of 190 countries, with the lowest possible score for depth of credit information and five of 16 points for its insolvency framework, the magazine reported.<\/p>\n

Ethio Lease planned to import about $600 million of equipment over three years, focusing first on the medical, agricultural, energy, IT, food processing and general industrial sectors, Van Schaik said. The EIU said leasing would help meet private-sector demand for capital goods left unmet by foreign-currency shortages.<\/p>\n

The government expected 11 percent growth in 2019\/20. The EIU forecast that it would miss that target but projected average annual growth of 7.6 percent from 2019 to 2023, driven by roads, power projects and industrial parks.<\/p>\n

In November 2023, Ethio Lease said it was winding down. It said a 2021 amendment to a central bank directive, requiring lease agreements to carry fixed payments denominated in birr, had made it impossible to write new leases, Ethiopian Tribune reported.<\/p>\n

The company formally entered voluntary liquidation on April 12, 2024, and expects the process to last until late 2026, when its last leases expire, according to its website.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia\u2019s parliament approved a banking proclamation on Dec. 17, 2024 that allows foreign banks to enter the country\u2019s financial sector, Addis Standard reported. The National Bank of Ethiopia lists it as Banking Business Proclamation No. 1360\/2025.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> The Africa Report (Aug. 2019)<\/a>, Ethiopian News Agency (Aug. 9, 2019)<\/a>, Ethiopian Tribune (Nov. 2023)<\/a>, Ethio Lease: About<\/a>, Addis Standard (Dec. 2024)<\/a>, National Bank of Ethiopia: Banking Business Proclamation No. 1360\/2025<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethio Lease became the first foreign-owned company to win a financial services license in Ethiopia in August 2019, but red tape still held back business finance, The Africa Report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":838014,"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-284593","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-addis-ababa-2008.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1c2d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284593","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=284593"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838022,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284593\/revisions\/838022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}