Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Ready to Serve Expected 1 Mn Ethiopian Diaspora 24 - 7: CEO

December 11/2021 (ENA)  The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) announced that it is ready to serve the 1 million Ethiopian Diaspora expected to come to their home country for twenty-four hours seven days a week and provide several financial services.

Speaking to ENA, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia CEO, Abie Sano said the visit of 1 million Ethiopian Diaspora is a good news to the bank  and the bank is making preparations to further develop packages and refresh services.

“We have already formed a task force that will be working on services to provide more efficient better services than in the past,’’ he stated.  

The bank has launched a booking system called Gate Rooms, which enables the diaspora to book hotels from where they are, the CEO revealed, adding that members of the diaspora who come to Ethiopia could easily make booking, pay, and book online.

According to Abie, CBE has also arranged financing services for mortgages and vehicles at privileged rates.

“We have several services in areas of financing for mortgages and vehicles, if they want to move permanently to Ethiopia. For businesses, we have arranged products that would very much suit  them at very much privileged rates; that is lower interest rate for loan, longer loan period, lower collateral requirement, and lower equity requirement.”

Moreover, branches will be ready to serve them over the counter in banking services like foreign exchange translations, he said, adding that the branches at the airport will be the first recipients of this service.

Besides CBE branches at the airport, the diaspora can exchange foreign currency at the 500 branches of the bank in Addis Ababa and at 1,700 branches all over the country.

The CEO further stated that the bank will “accept Visa and Mastercard as well as Union pay so that they can use debit cards to get local currency (Birr) for their local consumptions. All our branches are ready to serve them in  this regard. We have also about over 3,000 ATMs, 4,000 POS machines  at different places and CBE branch counters.”

Abie urged the diaspora to conduct their foreign exchange transaction through legal means.

“We hope the diaspora will exchange all foreign currencies through legal means, and they need to exchange only at the legal destinations like bank branches," the CEO stressed.

He said the bank has also plans to organize workshops to showcase products and services to the diaspora during their stay in Ethiopia, in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism and the pertinent associations.