Addis Ababa: TECHz Magazine – News Desk
Ethiopia’s national payment switch, EthSwitch S.C., has unveiled its Unified Government Payment Platform (UGPP) in Addis Ababa, introducing an interoperable digital infrastructure layer designed to consolidate fragmented public collections and disbursements into a single national gateway.
Presented at the Ethiopia Finance Forum 2026 at the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum, the platform was demonstrated to senior federal officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh, Finance Minister Ahmed Shide, and National Bank of Ethiopia Governor Dr. Eyob Tekalign.
Public service revenue collection across Ethiopia has historically faced severe fragmentation, with municipal agencies, licensing authorities, and utilities operating isolated portals that often forced citizens to open dedicated accounts at specific financial institutions.
Operating under the mandate “One Nation, One Platform, Every Bill, Any Channel, Secure Experience,” the UGPP functions as a centralized, neutral transaction intermediary. Instead of public bodies engineering multiple bilateral API integrations with individual commercial banks and digital wallet operators, agencies establish a single connection with EthSwitch. Citizens and businesses can then settle administrative fees, permits, and utility bills through direct account-to-account bank transfers, mobile money superapps, USSD shortcodes, interoperable QR codes, or point-of-sale terminals.
The platform’s national deployment follows a successful pilot in the public healthcare sector led by the Ministry of Health alongside development partners, including the United Nations Development Programme. The trial evaluated electronic patient fee settlements without the friction of specialized accounts or high transaction overhead. Following that technical validation, federal authorities have queued nearly 16 public entities into the active onboarding pipeline, targeting a comprehensive public sector transition across municipal services and licensing bureaus by 2029.
The initiative directly supports the National Bank of Ethiopia’s National Digital Payments Strategy 2026 – 2030 and the Digital Ethiopia 2030 blueprint, which treat public revenue collection as essential digital public infrastructure rather than proprietary commercial territory. The gateway builds upon EthSwitch’s operational scale, which processed ETB 1.26 trillion in digital transactions across its ISO 20022-compliant switches and retail payment networks during the 2025/2026 fiscal year while generating ETB 2.6 billion in pre-tax profit. By integrating public revenue streams into this established architecture, the platform establishes the foundation for a unified, digital-first public economy.
