The market, in motion
Ethiopia's stock exchange opened in January 2025. These are the equities admitted to the ESX Main Market — banks and Ethio Telecom — priced at the latest published ESX levels, sourced daily. The ESX has no live tick feed, so prices update each trading session and are stamped with their source date.
Equity prices are the latest published ESX levels, sourced daily from capitalmarketethiopia.com / ESX (stamped with the source date); the ESX publishes no live tick feed, so intraday values hold at the last posted price. USD/EUR figures convert at ETB 1 = $0.006277 = €0.005378 (~159 ETB/USD, ~186 ETB/EUR; rates ≈3 Jul 2026) and are indicative only. Sources: esx.et, capitalmarketethiopia.com, africancapitalmarketsnews.com, addisinsight.net, birrmetrics.com, exchange-rates.org.
What the country sells to the world
Commodities are Ethiopia's real link to global markets — coffee is its single largest export, followed by gold and sesame. This board leads with those, then sets them against the global benchmarks that move them. Every row now streams live market data: metals, energy and global agri from world exchanges, and Ethiopian sesame & coffee from the live ECX domestic auction — shown alongside their FOB export reference.
Coffee ECX · WASHED
Rows tagged LIVE stream real market prices — metals via api.gold-api.com, energy & global agri via Yahoo Finance / EIA, and Ethiopian sesame & coffee via the ECX domestic auction (ecx.com.et), each refreshed automatically. SIM appears only if a live feed is momentarily unreachable, and REF marks a real last-reported price held at its sourced value. ECX prices are domestic auction levels (shown alongside the FOB export reference); global benchmarks reflect live futures. USD↔ETB at ETB 1 = $0.006277. Sources: ecx.com.et, api.gold-api.com, Yahoo Finance, eia.gov, nbe.gov.et, thereporterethiopia.com.
Who's winning the banking boom
Ethiopia's 31 commercial banks posted their highest-ever combined earnings in the fiscal year to June 2025 — net profit up 61% to ETB 93.4 billion. Pick a fiscal year below, sort by any column, and click any bank for a full profile. Figures are the latest disclosed per bank for each year; blanks mean not yet publicly reported. Ethiopian fiscal years end 7 July.
| Bank ↕ | Assets (Br) ↕ | Deposits (Br) ↕ | Net profit (Br) ↕ | Paid-up cap. (Br) ↕ | NPL ↕ | ESX status ↕ |
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Sources: NBE Financial Stability Report (Nov 2024); NBE 3rd Financial Stability Report (Mar 2026) via BusinessDay; banks’ audited FY2024/25 annual reports (Dashen, Bank of Abyssinia, Amhara, Wegagen) & AGM results (Zemen, Bunna, Lion) via Addis Fortune, Birr Metrics, Capital Ethiopia & 2merkato; Awash / Addis Bank disclosures via African Capital Markets News & Ethiopian Monitor; ESX listing announcements (2025–26). Profit columns are net after tax (press headlines usually quote pre-tax); capital is paid-up (not total capital incl. reserves). Where a bank reported only pre-tax profit (Lion, Gadaa) or withheld a metric (BoA / Lion NPL), the cell is left blank rather than filled with a pre-tax proxy. Sector NPL fell to 3.1% at June 2025 (lowest in 5 yrs); a few individual banks exceed the 5% ceiling and are under NBE remediation.
Who leads on what
The leading banks on each measure for the fiscal year selected above. Each board ranks only the banks that actually disclosed that figure — “of 18 reporting” means eighteen banks published it, so no bank is penalised for a number nobody has, and a measure too thinly reported to rank fairly is left out entirely. Profit growth is the year-on-year change in net profit; NPL is ranked lowest-first, because a lower bad-loan ratio is better; branches are each bank’s latest disclosed count, not a fiscal-year figure. The small percentage is the bank’s share of the reporting banks’ combined total. Click any bank for its full profile.
Foreign banks entering Ethiopia
Ethiopia opened its ~50-year-closed banking sector to foreign investors in 2024. But as of July 2026 the National Bank of Ethiopia has licensed no foreign bank to actually operate — every move so far is a representative office (a liaison post that can’t bank), one capital-markets licence from a different regulator, acquisition talks, or stated intent. These are informative profiles, not balance sheets: no assets or profit figures until a bank officially joins and reports. Click any card for the full status. Grouped by how far along they are.
Legal basis: Banking Business Proclamation No. 1360/2024 (gazetted 12 Mar 2025) & NBE Directive SBB/94/2025 (effective 25 Jun 2025). Foreign entrants face an ETB 5bn (~US$36–40m) paid-up-capital minimum for a subsidiary or branch, remitted in foreign currency; a rep office needs only a US$100,000 inward deposit and cannot conduct banking. Ownership caps: 49% aggregate foreign, 40% single strategic investor, with an NBE “exceptional-circumstances” clause for larger acquisitions. NBE says “several” applications have been received but has published no roster; zero full commercial-banking licences had been granted as of July 2026. Compiled Jul 2026 from NBE & ECMA notices, the banks’ own releases, Reuters, Addis Fortune, Addis Standard, Ethiopian Monitor, Capital Ethiopia, The Reporter Ethiopia, Fana & 2merkato. Statuses change — verify current licensing with the NBE.
How the capital market actually works
Ethiopia's Capital Market Authority (ECMA) licenses everyone who intermediates securities. Here's the licence ladder, the money it takes, and — importantly — what a prior AI got wrong about the numbers.
Fact-check: three claims from a previous AI answer
We ran each through primary sources. Verdicts:
The one thing to internalise
The widely-quoted capital figures (broker ETB 6M, digital sub-broker ETB 1M) come from the 2023 public-consultation draft of the licensing directive — every page is stamped “DRAFT FOR PUBLIC CONSULTATION.” The directive was later enacted as No. 980/2024. Treat the table below as the draft schedule until you confirm each figure against the final gazetted directive PDF. Fees live in a separate instrument, Fee Directive No. 996/2024.
Minimum capital by licence category
Draft Schedule I — shareholders’ fund requirement. Fully paid in cash, deposited in a licensed Ethiopian commercial bank. Verify against final Directive 980/2024.
The application, step by step
Process per ecma.gov.et/licensing (verified live). No statutory processing timeline is published on that page — it sits in the directive text. Applicants may also need an ESX Approval-in-Principle for trading membership.
Underwriting? You need an investment bank licence
Under the Public Offer & Trading of Securities Directive No. 1030/2024, Art. 54(3), if an issuer chooses to have a public offer underwritten, the underwriter must be an Investment Bank. A plain securities-broker licence does not carry underwriting authority.
- Underwriting is optional for the issuer; every underwriting agreement needs prior ECMA approval.
- In a syndicate, the lead investment bank is lead underwriter — except for debt issues.
- Investment-bank draft minimum capital: ETB 25M standalone / ETB 100M within a banking group.
- Every issuer registering securities must retain a Transaction Advisor — only a licensed investment bank or securities investment adviser qualifies.
Running a digital trading platform — the real path
This is the part that matters most for a “Robinhood of Ethiopia.” A digital sub-broker licence is not enough on its own.
Sources: ESX Rulebook 2024 & “Becoming a Member” guide (esx.et); ECMA licensing directive draft/enacted. Digital sub-brokers are barred from ESX trading membership and from holding client funds — they ride on a sponsoring broker/dealer/investment bank.
Where you actually open an account — the licensed ESX brokers
These are the Capital Market Service Providers a client picks in the ESX “Select your Broker” onboarding flow. Each is licensed by ECMA under Directive 980/2024 and admitted as an ESX trading member — the only firms cleared to route your order to the exchange. Note the split: five are Investment Banks, two are Securities Dealers, not one uniform “broker” category.
The seven with codes are the ESX onboarding (“Neway app”) list; Prime Capital was admitted as the 8th trading member on 2 Jul 2026 and has no published participant code yet. Licence lanes, parent institutions and issue dates verified against ECMA’s licensee register and the ESX trading-members roster (Mar 2025–Jul 2026); contacts/addresses reconciled with both. ECMA licences carry ~1-year expiries — confirm current status at ecma.gov.et before acting. Not an endorsement. Sources: ecma.gov.et, esx.et, stockmarket.et, africancapitalmarketsnews.com, birrmetrics.com.
Market context (verified Jul 2026)
ECMA’s register lists 17 licensed CMSPs across three lanes — Investment Bank, Securities Dealer, Securities Investment Adviser (Corporate) — rising to ~18 counting United Capital Financial Services (a subsidiary of Nigeria’s United Capital Group), the first foreign investment bank in Ethiopia, licensed 5 Jun 2026. First Addis and Siinqee joined ESX as the 6th and 7th trading members on 8 May 2026; Siinqee also serves as the ESX settlement bank. Three equities trade today (Wegagen, Gadaa, Awash banks) with Ethio Telecom’s IPO completed and 70+ companies in the listing pipeline, including Dashen Bank and Bank of Abyssinia. Regulator: ECMA (Director-General Hana Tehelku). Exchange: ESX (CEO Tilahun E. Kassahun).
What just happened
The stories moving Ethiopia's markets, and the corners of Africa that pull on them. Newest first, grouped by what's driving them, every one tied to a named source. Tap any card to read the full story.
Every card is a real, reported event we checked against its source (Apr–Jul 2026). We curate and summarise — this isn't a live wire.