The state owned giant, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), disclosed it is intending to open branch offices in countries that has a big number of Ethiopian communities.

Ephrem Mekuria, CBE’s Communication Director, noted the branches are going to be opened in an endeavor to encourage the flow of remittance. CBE is undertaking study to open branches as a first phase in United States of America (USA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), Djibouti and Saudi Arabia, he added.

The Communication Director explained the newly to be opened branches are going to increase the bank’s international competitiveness and also lend hand to combating illicit flow of money. In addition to this it will enable regularizing money transfer and increase remittance from Ethiopians and foreigners that are customers of CBE.

According to Word Bank (WB), in 2010moe than USD 2 Billion was transferred to Ethiopia via informal channels.

Currently CBE has only one branch out of Ethiopia, Juba’s Branch, and according to Ephrem, this branch’s performance has been encouraging.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs