PayWay Ethiopia Closed a Six-Figure Grant From Li-Way Program to Create Jobs Through Digital Payment

PayWay Ethiopia, a digital payments solution company has signed a funding agreement to be one of the implementing partners for the Li-Way program.

LI-WAY is a five-year program implemented by a consortium of partners composed of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (consortium lead), MercyCorps, TechnoServe, and Save the Children International.

It is a program that aims to contribute to sustainable poverty reduction, improved gender relations, and social stability in Addis Ababa.

The specific objective of the program is to improve the livelihoods of 200,000 people in poverty, of which 50% are believed to be women and 75% youth. LI-WAY plans to achieve this by working to increase their income and access to economic opportunities in Addis Abeba.

In order to implement the Li-Way Digital Payment for Jobs Creation intervention, the consortium has been looking for service providers in capacity building & facilitators of finance.

PayWay Ethiopia will play its role by creating jobs for payment agents in Addis Abeba and facilitating payment. Other implementing partners are SNV Li-Way, Awash Bank, and iceaddis.

Payway Ethiopia’s Managing Partner, Hilina Damte said,   “This funding agreement will help us expand our operations. We will be able to recruit, train, and capacitate new agents, to facilitate instant payment systems in Ethiopia”.

Currently, PayWay Ethiopia has 50 agents and with this partnership, it aims to increase the number of its agents to 1,000.

In terms of expanding operations, this partnership will allow PayWay Ethiopia to integrate its payment system with Awash Bank. The PayWay system is already integrated with the Bank of Abyssinia for float management.

In addition, PayWay Ethiopia believes the newly developed partnerships will enable it to connect with local services such as utility payment, for which Payway Ethiopia has an already developed and tested system.