Ethiopia is a nation that is on the road to recovery and huge steps are being taken to ensure that the country catches up with some of its fellow African countries. Ethiopia ranks among the lowest countries in the world in terms of the use of digital financial services, and that is one of the areas being targeted now as Ethiopians have now been introduced to a new service which is called Telebirr, this is a mobile money service which operates in Ethiopia which was recently launched on the 11th of May 2021. From the year 2009, M-Birr, which is a mobile money company, is the one which was being used in Ethiopia for mobile transfers and now they face stiff competition from Telebirr, which is owned by Ethio Telecom. Ethio Telecom is a telecom company owned by the Ethiopian government and the advantage it has over Mbirr is that it has over 53 million customers already and it will be easy to convince those customers to use their mobile money service.
The growth of Telebirr
Unlike in countries like South Africa where the people have several options when it comes to digital payments, Ethiopians did not have such privileges and that is the reason why Telebirr was very well received as more than 1 million cellphone subscribers in Ethiopia registered for the Telebirr mobile money service less than a week after its launch.
In the beginning of July, Ethio Telecom said that more than six million customers have registered with the mobile payment system, Telebirr, and this is amazing considering that Telibirr has been available for only two months. There is a lot of potential with Telebirr and this can be evidenced by the fact that Orange, a giant French telecom company, has formally declared its interest in buying into Ethio Telecom.
The reasons why Telebirr is extremely popular is because there is a lot they can do as they can email, receive, and store money using their mobile phones via the TeleBirr mobile money service. They are also be able to pay for goods, utilities, and utility bills, as well as receive money from the diaspora, apply for loans, and connect their bank accounts to their TeleBirr wallet.
How to register or sign up for Telebirr?
Before we go any further, it is important to realise that you can only use Telibirr if you are an Ethio Telecom mobile subscriber, and you can register using any of the two methods below;
Full-fledged registration
You can visit the nearest authorized telebirr retail agent or any Ethio Telecom shop with your Ethio Telecom active mobile number or an identity card.
Self-registration
To do self-registration, you must:
Dial *127# and following the instructions
OR
Download the Telebirr application from Google Play Store /App Store and register.
You can register for Telebirr by entering full KYC or by using the information provided by ethio telecom (Quick registration) if your profile match with the profile your Mobile service number in our system. In order to finalize the full KYC registration, you can also visit nearby Telebirr agent or Ethio Telecom point of sales.
Please note that customers registering via the Telebirr App may upload their identity card and recent photo to be fully registered on the system.
