Sybrin strengthens East African presence to support Ethiopia’s digital payments modernisation

The partnership aims to modernise Ethiopia's payments ecosystem. (Image: Sybrin)

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Sybrin has announced a strategic initiative to support Ethiopia’s digital payments modernisation, reinforcing the organisation’s long-term commitment to East Africa and its vision of enabling secure, efficient and inclusive financial ecosystems across the continent. The move follows market engagement and research conducted by Sybrin's Payments team, which identified Ethiopia as one of Africa's most strategically significant payments modernisation opportunities, driven by regulatory reform, rapid digital adoption and a clear national vision for financial inclusion.

While the country has made significant progress in establishing foundational payment infrastructure, the next phase of growth is expected to focus on operational excellence, workflow automation, fraud resilience, digital onboarding and the optimisation of existing payment infrastructure to support the increasing transactional volumes and financial inclusion.

"Ethiopia represents one of the most exciting payments modernisation opportunities on the continent today," says Avinash Naidoo, Product Manager: Payments and Clearing at Sybrin. "What makes the market particularly attractive is that the foundational infrastructure is already in place. The focus is no longer on building payment rails from scratch, but on enabling scale, efficiency, resilience and trust across the ecosystem. We believe there is significant opportunity to contribute through automation, workflow orchestration, fraud risk management, digital onboarding and payment modernisation capabilities that complement Ethiopia’s existing payments infrastructure."

This strategic initiative aligns closely with Ethiopia's National Digital Payments Strategy (NDPS) 2026-2030, which aims to accelerate financial inclusion, strengthen interoperability, enhance consumer trust and increase digital payment adoption across the country. According to Sybrin, Ethiopia's payments landscape is evolving rapidly, supported by growing mobile money adoption, expanding digital identity initiatives, increasing financial sector liberalisation and ongoing investments in national payment infrastructure.

As part of its long-term engagement strategy, Sybrin is partnering with Moti Engineering, one of Ethiopia's leading ICT solution providers and the country's largest systems integrator and ATM supplier. With more than 20 years of experience, a workforce of over 800 employees across 105 cities and towns, and extensive experience delivering technology solutions to financial institutions, government and private sector organisations, Moti Engineering will provide local implementation capability, market expertise and on-the-ground support aligned with Ethiopia's evolving financial services landscape.

"Successful expansion into a market such as Ethiopia requires more than introducing technology," says Stacey Japhta, Executive Head of Growth and Partnerships at Sybrin. "It requires local understanding, strong relationships and the ability to navigate a rapidly evolving financial services ecosystem. By collaborating with a respected in-country partner such as Moti Engineering, we are able to establish long-term collaboration with financial institutions and ecosystem stakeholders."

Moncy Matthews, Moti Engineering’s VP of Enterprise Software Solutions, says: "We are excited to collaborate with Sybrin to support Ethiopia's next phase of digital payments modernisation. By combining Sybrin's proven financial technology platforms with our local market expertise and implementation capabilities, we believe we can help financial institutions accelerate innovation while delivering greater value to customers."

Sybrin's approach will focus on working alongside financial institutions, regulators and ecosystem stakeholders to improve operational efficiency, strengthen governance, enhance customer onboarding and support the continued evolution of Ethiopia’s payments ecosystem.

The company believes Ethiopia's ongoing modernisation initiatives present a unique opportunity to contribute to the country's long-term financial inclusion and digital economy objectives.

"Across Africa, we're seeing a shift from infrastructure development to infrastructure optimisation," says Ryan Barlow, Chief Executive Officer of Sybrin.

"Ethiopia is a powerful example of this evolution. The market combines scale, regulatory vision, digital ambition and strong growth potential. Our expansion into Ethiopia reflects Sybrin's broader mission of enabling financial institutions to deliver secure, efficient and inclusive digital services. We look forward to working alongside Ethiopia’s financial sector and ecosystem stakeholders as they continue building one of Africa’s most progressive payments environments.

The strategic initiative forms part of Sybrin's broader African growth strategy and reinforces the company's continued investment across East Africa, where it partners with financial institutions to deliver payments, digital onboarding, identity verification, fraud risk management and process automation capabilities.

Rather than focusing solely on payment infrastructure, Sybrin’s approach is centred on helping financial institutions optimise the operational layers surrounding payments, customer onboarding, workflow orchestration, fraud management, exception handling and operational automation. This is a reflection of the broader shift across Africa where the focus is moving from building payments rails to maximising their efficiency, resilience, adoption and interconnectedness.