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Telebirr (Ethio Telecom)

“Can Ethiopia's state-owned telecom become the universal financial infrastructure layer for Africa's second-most-populous nation by embedding payments, savings, insurance, and identity into a single SuperApp?”

Founded2021
HQAddis Ababa, Ethiopia
IndustryFintech / Mobile Money
The story

Telebirr launched in May 2021 as Ethio Telecom's state-backed mobile money service, built with Huawei in just five months, rapidly becoming Ethiopia's dominant digital wallet by leveraging Ethio Telecom's existing subscriber base. From basic P2P transfers and airtime top-up, the platform has expanded into a 'SuperApp' encompassing savings (Sanduq), insurance payments, utility bills, and a marketplace (Zemen GEBEYA). The 2024 Visa Direct partnership marked a critical shift toward international remittance and cross-border payments, giving Telebirr a virtual Visa card capability and connecting it to global payment rails for the Ethiopian diaspora.

Last 12 months
2024-08
2025-03
Product timeline
2021
Telebirr mobile payment service launched on May 11, 2021 by Ethio Telecom, developed in partnership with Huawei, with NBE license NPS PII/01/2021.· banking
2021
Telebirr introduced tiered account levels (Level 1, 2, 3) with KYC-based transaction limits per NBE directive.· banking
2023
Launched telebirr Digital Insurance Service in cooperation with Ministry of Transport and Logistics and Road Safety and Insurance Fund for third-party vehicle insurance payments.· banking
2023
Launched Sanduq (Saving) service allowing customers to save/deposit money with interest.· banking
2024
Partnered with Visa to launch Ethiopia's first Visa digital wallet and Visa Direct remittance service enabling transfers to/from 190+ countries.· card
2024
Launched telebirr Remit App for diaspora to send money to Ethiopia using Bank of Abyssinia Cyber Source payment gateway.· banking
2025
Launched teleSign, a national digital signature and identity verification platform integrated with Fayda (Ethiopia's national digital ID) using AI-powered video identity verification.· banking
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Telebirr (Ethio Telecom)
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Telebirr (Ethio Telecom)’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Telebirr (self-operated)Visa Direct
Money movement
in the full report
Card network
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
3 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.