Ethio-Telecom, the giant telecom service provider in the country is aggressively working to protect its market share plans and is about to start its mobile money service called ‘Tele Birr’ in the coming two weeks.
Tele birr is an innovative mobile money solution for Ethio telecom customers, the solution allows customers to store, send, receive, transfer and spend money through an electronic account using their mobile phone.
“It is a solution that facilitates the delivery of cashless transaction like payment, money transfer and mobile remittance,” according to Ethio telecom. Tele Birr is expected to give services including; money transfer across all network, payment for goods and services locally and internationally, pay bills for example for school fees, utility bills (water, electricity), DSTV. Moreover Tele Birr will allow users to cash-out, buy prepaid airtime, SMS, voice, data bundles or customer can pay a direct connect account and for other Ethio telecom subscribers, they will be able to make secure online payments.
The service will also allow customers to receive money from diaspora, cash-in, save money, access loan, link bank account to TeleBirr wallet and vice versa and will feature a manage TeleBirr account.
The solution will provide mobile payment services generally to payment services operated under financial regulation to which transactions can be performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash, cheque, or credit cards, a consumer can use a mobile device to pay for a wide range of services and digital or hard goods.
The company started the process to launch the service over a year ago by submitting a proposal to the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), which approved its application to venture into digital financial services. After getting the consent, Ethio telecom’s management jumped into selecting a platform and in organizing of a project office.
To register for TeleBirr, the customer will visit a TeleBirr Agent outlet / Ethio telecom shop and present a mobile phone with an Ethio telecom SIM card and a valid identification document.
To ensure competitiveness and sustainable growth of the company, Ethio telecom has develop a strategy by considering and reviewing relevant government policies, international best practices, and industry trends to increase its infrastructure and system capacity enhancement development and expansion aiming to boost network coverage capacity and quality service.
In a related development on April 15, 2021 Ethio telecom launched its 4G LTE Service in South South West Region for the fourth time across the country.
The 4G LTE Services in South South West Region covers 67 sites in the region from 641 sites. The expansion has covered towns, Wolaita Sodo, Arba Minch, Hosana, Wolkite, Butajira and Jinka, where high mobile data traffic has been observed. This of course is of great benefit to its 610,000 customers in the region.
“With the high bandwidth and high-speed features of 4G/LTE services, we hope will enable and empower our customers to digitize their services, increase productivity and improve their experiences,” stated the firm’s CEO.
Beside its support to increase financial strength and service advancement of the company as Frehiwot said 4G expansion also support digital inclusion.
Data traffic growth and demand based 4G/LTE expansion in Addis and regional towns is among the major strategic initiatives set out in the three years company strategy.
As Frehiwot Tamiru, CEO of Ethio Telecom stated on the launching ceremony, until the end of the current budget year the company has planned to increase number of 4G network in 103 cities over the country.
“Accordingly, over the next few months, we will be launching similar services in other parts of the country, for which preparation works are underway,” expressed Frehiwot.
Currently, Ethio telecom has 53.7 million customers from which 25 million of them are internet service users.
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