Driving Digital Payment in Africa: Zemen Bank and Netcetera Join Forces

Zemen Bank, a commercial bank based in Addis Ababa, wanted to offer easy online payments to its customers without compromising on security. The bank is known for its service excellence, innovation and pioneering new products and adopting new services. They wanted to engage with Netcetera, an experienced digital player with the right digital software to allow them to take off in the African payments market and offer customers a seamless online payment experience.

The market for digital payments is growing steadily in Ethiopia, as more and more customers gain better access to e-Commerce sites and want to shop from their mobile devices. The number of eCommerce consumers in Ethiopia is projected to reach 44.2 million users in 2025. This means issuers need to set up robust payment processing systems which allow smooth and secure communication of data between issuers, merchants and acquirers.

Netcetera’s Access Control Server allows Zemen to authenticate cardholders online with multi-factor authentication and prevent fraudulent payments. Together they worked to onboard customer cards and are now enabling Zemen Bank customers to make simple, secure e-commerce transactions with all payment card schemes, while ensuring the highest level of security for financial data.

Amha Tadesse, CIO of Zemen Bank said, “We are excited to partner with Netcetera in providing a secure e-commerce payment ecosystem to our clients and to promote E-Commerce marketplaces vital for Ethiopia’s digital strategy 2025”. We appreciated Netcetera’s professionalism, flexibility and setting of realistic goals for our project. The comprehensive onboarding also allowed us to have all our questions answered and explore new functions.” Jad Bejjani, Senior Business Development Executive at Netcetera states “We are thrilled to take this step into the Ethiopian market and support a growing digital payment ecosystem. We are confident that the e-commerce sector in East Africa will continue to flourish, and we will continue to follow and support Zemen Bank on that journey.” ACS functionality will be available to Zemen Bank customers in March.