Since the launch of the Amole Digital Wallet in Ethiopia in July 2018, spearheaded by Ethiopian FinTech Moneta Technologies and Dashen Bank, underpinned by CR2’s Digital Banking Platform, Dashen Bank has transformed its digital customer base by a phenomenal 4,000%, accelerated customer acquisition, enhanced its liquidity position and is now deeply embedded in the daily spending habits of millions of Ethiopians every day.

By December 2020, over 2 million customers have been registered on the platform, representing a significant boost of Dashen’s digital customer base, which was just 50,000 when the project started. Amole is playing a significant role in moving Ethiopia to a cashless society, with the digital payment platform already surpassing the number of card transactions in retail environments and accounting for more than 50% of the payment method of DSTV payments across the country.

Market Context

The Ethiopian market provides excellent market indicators to foster such growth:

• 70% of Ethiopia’s 117 million population is under the age of 25.
• Fastest-growing economy in Africa and in the top 5 in the world.
• Traditionally a cash-based economy.
• Just 24% of the population is banked.
• 7 million mobile subscribers, 18.5 million (and accelerating) using smartphones .
• Solutions offered by other mobile money operators and banks in the past did not offer a complete digital experience, with the need to fulfil the transaction with cash in person, nor did they offer any integration between the bank account and wallet.

A strong partnership with local FinTechs

With a more open economy, Ethiopia’s FinTechs and Telcos may now participate in the mobile money/digital money market, increasing the competition for incumbent banks. Rather than viewing FinTechs as a competitive threat to its position within the banking landscape, Dashen Bank adopted a partnership approach to execute its digital bank strategy. Led by FinTech visionary Moneta Technologies the bank executed a strategy to build a rich ecosystem that embeds digital banking within Ethiopians’ daily lives today. Co-operation and collaboration are the key tenets of the bank’s success.

Solution

Dashen saw the huge benefits that Moneta offered. Moneta developed a new digital wallet for the Ethiopian market – Amole – named after a salt-bar currency used in ancient Ethiopia and looked outward to the market for a suitable technology enabler. Given the proven success of CR2 within the African banking market and its reputation of delivering projects fast and on time, driven by a market leading digital banking platform that provides a range of banking channels, they selected CR2 to provide omnichannel access for all users – USSD, Mobile App and Internet channels.  Additional channels available include a social media app, merchant, and agency app mPOS.

With a laser focus on increasing the volume and breadth of daily transactions coupled with increasing the stickiness of the services available, Moneta was able to quickly lay the foundations to build a rich ecosystem on an open platform, integrating over 50 external products and services, supported by 8,000 merchants, and seamlessly integrated to Dashen Bank’s existing digital banking channel. They leveraged the Ethiopian Postal Service, Hidase Telecom, Total Ethiopia etc. as well as Dashen’s 450 branches and network of 1,800 agents nationwide to help accept Amole, Cashin, Cashout and sales of digital content based on QR Code. A platform was built that processed bill presentment and payment to scale to process high volumes of transactions.

A key aspect of the digital wallet was the combination of offering relevant products, ease of use and convenience for a range of services such as buying airline tickets (Ethiopian Airlines), school fees, retail payments, government payments, eCommerce, concert tickets, taxi-hailing services, mobile top-ups, DStv bills among others. The solution also provided an easy onboarding process, allowing users to self-register across a range of channels.

Key Success Factors

A number of key success factors can be attributed to the phenomenal growth experienced to date:

• Dashen Bank and Moneta Technologies fostered a strong partnership with a common goal.
• Omnichannel approach with a frictionless experience delivered by CR2’s BankWorld Digital Banking Platform. Millions of customers are accessing the wallet in an omnichannel way. Amole is the only digital wallet in Ethiopia to offer a truly omnichannel wallet – Dashen digital banking users may seamlessly move between their digital banking service and the digital wallet.
• Vision of lifestyle banking: Dashen and Moneta did not adopt a sole P2P strategy for digital payments. Moneta developed an open platform that offered relevant and sticky services to customers facilitating all of the daily transactions required by Ethiopians as they go about their day – purchasing their morning coffee, their taxi to work, their lunch, their groceries in the supermarket, their DStv bill, paying school bills or accessing any of the government services available in the platform integrated to the national switch, EthSwitch.
• CR2’s flexible platform and the CR2 team allowed for rapid launch to market and delivered a range of access channels that is extremely relevant to the Ethiopian market – including USSD, mobile/internet. The nature of the platform did not require Dashen Bank to make any additional investment to its core banking system.
• Easy to onboard and self-register across a range of access channels – USSD, Mobile App, Internet and the social media app. Moneta’s approach to onboarding went beyond just opening an account. It is driven by analytics and a range of marketing efforts that brings the customer into the platform in a frictionless way. Amole is the only digital wallet in Ethiopia with full KYC to offer self-service registration.
• Complete digital process: all products and services purchased using the wallet are done so in an end to end digital process. This is a unique offering in Ethiopia. Other digital wallets require a cash payment at a bank branch for receipt of the product or service.
• Offering an optimal user experience to encourage engagement and customer retention, which in turn helps to forge a reputation for customer experience and excellence for the bank.
• Offering a broad range of payment and money transfer capabilities, including Person to Person (P2P), QR code, Card payments (Gift, Prepaid) and more.

Looking to the future

Digital banking is a necessary investment for any bank. However, Dashen Bank realised the benefits that could be realised by partnering with a FinTech which had the capability and vision to build a rich ecosystem, integrating a range of products and services that cater to a customer’s day to day needs, all easily accessible from any device and paid for digitally.  It has provided competitive strength to the bank, attracting millions of users, acquisition of new customers and enhanced its liquidity position.  Looking to the future, Dashen Bank has a desire to continue to add new products and services to the ecosystem. Amole is a platform that provides Dashen with access to previously untapped segments of the Ethiopian market. With a view to adding cross border payments (eCommerce), international transfers (inward remittance), additional retail payments and a focus on large manufacturers, the future is bright for Amole, and its ambitious milestones will continue to be achieved.

IBSI View

Amole Digital Wallet is a successful tool for Dashen Bank to reach the very large Ethiopian population that remains unbanked. The functionality and the variety of access encompassing the critical banking channels in Ethiopia and wider Africa are key success factors. Amole has driven a lot of growth for Dashen Bank, and it is showing signs of acceleration, allowing it to be on track to achieve its target of 17 million users by 2023.

KEY FACTS

Bank: Dashen Bank
FinTech: Moneta Technologies with CR2’s Digital Banking Platform
Bank Headquarters: Ethiopia
Solution: Amole Digital Wallet
Timeline: Go-live in July 2018