Commercial Bank of Ethiopia

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Commercial Bank of Ethiopia
[[]]
Type	~
Founded	1943
Headquarters	Template:Country data country Addis Ababa
Industry	Finance
Products	Financial services
Revenue	~
Employees	~
Website	http://www.combanketh.com/

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is the largest bank in Ethiopia, accounting for perhaps somewhere between 70% and 90% of the commercial banking market. The bank has 191 branches scattered over the main cities and towns including 45 branches in Addis Ababa. The Bank recently opened new branches in the tourist towns of Lalibela and Sofoumer. The bank had one branch in Djibouti, which ceased operation recently.

[edit] History

In 1963 the Ethiopian government split the State Bank of Ethiopia (est. 1943) into the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE). In 1958 the State Bank of Ethiopia established a branch in Sudan that the Sudanese government nationalized in 1970. Then in 1980 the Government merged Addis Bank into the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to make CBE the sole commercial bank in the country. (The government had created Addis Bank from the merger of the newly nationalized Addis Ababa Bank, and the Ethiopian operations of Banco di Roma and Banco di Napoli. Addis Abba Bank was an affiliate that National and Grindlays bank had established in 1963 and of which it owned 40%. At the time of nationalization Addis Ababa bank had 26 branches.) In 1994, the government reorganized and reestablished CBE.

Recently the government has again reengineered CBE and signed a contract with Royal Bank of Scotland to provide management consultancy services to CBE. After the death of its former President, Mr. Gezahegn Yilma, the Board of Management appointed Mr Abie Sano as a new President of the Bank. The Bank's capital is recently raised to 4 billion Ethiopian Birr by the rule of the parliament.