The first Ethiopia’s online payment gateway service : Chapa Payment

Chapa obtained its Payment Gateway licence from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) in May 2022 and has since begun onboarding merchants. Currently, Chapa supports eight international and ten domestic payment methods for processing payments.

Chapa currently accepts JCB, Visa, PayPal, Discover, UnionPay MasterCard, Diners Club, and American Express for international payments. Locally, Chapa processes the debit and ATM cards of the Bank of Abyssinia, Awash International Bank, Cooperative Bank of Oromia, Hibret Bank, and NiB International Bank.

Additionally, telebirr, CBE Birr, and Awash Birr — three mobile payment systems — have all been integrated.

Businesses must first pass KYC checks, provide business information like TIN, business licences, address, and contact information, and receive approval before they can begin accepting payments on Chapa.

For programmers, Chapa offers simple integration. By adding six lines of code — which Chapa refers to as “simple as a copy and paste job” — to their website or app, users can accept payments.

Additionally, Chapa has developed a community of programmers and developers who can help businesses integrate Chapa’s payment gateway.

As soon as the National Bank of Ethiopia allowed technology companies access to the fintech market in 2020, Chapa was created. Chapa was the third business to get the go-ahead from NBE after ArifPay and SunPay, out of more than a dozen that applied for a payment gateway licence over the past two years.