Capping off a week marked by stellar announcements of forex allocation by Ethiopia’s banks, the Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) reported yesterday that it has disbursed nearly 350 million dollars to its customers in the budget year. Notably, more than half of this amount, $189 million, was disbursed in the third quarter of the budget year to a little over 1,000 customers. A focus on supporting importers with the provision of essential commodities was reported by BoA.
Earlier in the week, Awash Bank, the biggest private bank in Ethiopia, had announced that it allocated nearly half a billion dollars to 2,200 customers since January. The Bank echoed the prioritized allocation for strategic commodities like fuel, edible oil, and sugar. The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the state-owned bank with nearly half of the banking industry, also reported later in the week that it allocated a little over 122 million dollars to 698 customers.
Awash’s disbursements of 79 million dollars for fuel reflect an adoption of a recent central bank ordinance that requires commercial banks to share in its long-standing sole burden of settling fuel-related letters of credit. Back in October, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) injected $175 million to ease pressures in fuel import payments.
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