NBE Will Sell $840m Over Six Auctions, a 68pc Bigger Quarter

The National Bank of Ethiopia has committed to selling up to 840 million dollars to commercial banks over the second quarter of the Ethiopian fiscal year, across six auctions of 140 million dollars each running through December. The allocation is 68 percent larger than the preceding quarter, and the bank expanded it despite weaker demand from banks in September.

The first of the six sales was scheduled for Tuesday, October 13.

A calendar, not a drip

The significant part is not the headline figure but its shape. Six dated auctions of equal size, published in advance, is a different instrument from an unannounced allocation that arrives when the central bank chooses. An importer with a letter of credit to cover can now count forward to the next window and size a bid against a known supply.

That is the first thing a managed float owes the people who have to plan inside it. Ethiopia's foreign exchange regime has been reformed on paper for over a year; a published calendar is one of the few changes a treasurer can actually act on.

Rates barely moved

Across 29 banks in the week before the announcement, the equally weighted buying average slipped from 161.71 birr on Monday to 161.67 birr on Saturday, and the selling average from 164.95 birr to 164.91 birr — four cents either way, according to Addis Fortune's market tracking.

One outlier is worth noting. Bunna Bank held a buying rate of 164.29 birr for three days, ticked up to 164.31 birr on Thursday, then printed 159.57 birr on Friday — a one-day fall of 4.74 birr, or 2.88 percent — before returning to 164.32 birr on Saturday. A single institution moving nearly three percent for one day and back is more likely a posting artefact than a market event, but it is the kind of print that distorts an average.

Open

Why the central bank increased supply by 68 percent into softer demand is not explained in either account. Nor is the outcome of the October 13 auction — how much of the 140 million dollars was taken up, by how many banks, and at what clearing rate — which is the number that will show whether the expanded programme is meeting real demand or exceeding it.

Sources: Birr Metrics, 12 October 2026 · Addis Fortune, 12 October 2026