M-Birr
Region and country of operations: Africa, Ethiopia
Jurisdiction of registration: Ireland
Business sector: Fintech
Date of agreement (month/year): 4/2017 (2011, 2014, 2016 not disclosed)
Finnfund’s financing: EUR 1,000,000
Share of Finnfund’s financing: 100%
Size of project/financing: EUR 1,000,000
Environmental and social category: C
Project description
M-Birr provides a fully fledged suite of mobile money services in Ethiopia in cooperation with five leading Ethiopian microfinance institutions. M-Birr has also developed an application to pay for goods and other purchases using mobile money, an electronic payroll service and an application to distribute aid electronically, even to aid recipients without a mobile phone.
Main development impact
M-Birr is the first electronic payment service between financial institutions in Ethiopia. Also, M-Birr was the first electronic distributor of airtime. The payment service offers significant cost efficiencies to the microfinance institutions and the institutions will be able to develop new business models allowing them to serve clients in rural areas where their operations currently are not cost efficient.