Enat Bank announced special interest rates for women at press conference it called at its headquarters on Wednesday April 16, 2014, Fortune reported.

Women will benefit from a 5.5 percent interest rate starting from end the of April, with the intent to empowering women, according to Bertukan Gebrezgi, vice president of the Bank, who chaired the briefing with the Bank’s president, Wondwossen Teshome.

“Otherwise, the Bank could have set it at 5.2 percent, which would have helped it become more competent in the market,” Bertukan said.

The Bank has also announced that it has shortlisted three companies for the supply of CORE banking solution. Twenty companies including Temenos, Oracle Financial Software, Infosys Technologies, Sopra Banking System, had initially responded to its invitation five months ago. However the banks declined to disclose the name of the shortlisted companies, according to Fortune. The Bank said it will pick one of the three by June 2014, following site visit to banks where they have installed the technology.

The bank has allocated 25 million Ethiopian birr for the core banking system and other related technologies, it was disclosed at the press conference.

Enat Bank has so far opened 6,972 saving accounts. The number of accounts held by women is 4,044.

“Even though a large portion of the saving account is dominated by women, the amount of deposit in the Bank is still dominated by men,” Bertukan said. “We will work to rectify this and increase women’s share.”

Source: Fortune