BIRR On The Loose!

Welcome to this week’s edition of ፍራንክ Digest!

Your Weekly Brief on all things Finance and Investing. Quick, enjoyable reads for busy professionals in 5 minutes or less.

Topics this week:

• ⚡ BUZZ: Birr Plunges From Sudden Reforms

• ❓ What This Means For You

• 🗝 The Key Takeaways

Thanks for reading!

BUZZ: A Day in The Week of the Ethiopian Birr

Last week, our currency started to float like the fish from Finding Nemo 🐟.

Except...this is not a Disney movie.

Birr is now exchanged at a rate of 101 Birr at Commercial Bank of Ethiopia- down from 57 Birr a week and some change ago - to acquire one US dollar from the bank. While some private banks are charging as high as 113 Birr and the greatest spread between buying and selling rates being 15% at Bunna International Bank.

This is due to the the sweeping policy changes that the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) implemented last week.

In total 13 amendments were announced, most notable of those being the green light for financial institutions to buy and sell foreign currency at የገበያ ዋጋ between themselves (interbank) and to their customers.