How does telebirr work for online payments?
telebirr is a phone-based wallet payment. Merchants usually reach it through a local payment gateway. Chapa, for example, offers a direct charge for telebirr: the merchant sends the amount, the shopper’s phone number and a unique reference, in ETB, and Chapa sends a USSD push notification to the shopper’s phone. The shopper confirms the payment on their phone, and telebirr completes the charge.
The merchant should confirm before releasing goods. Chapa tells merchants to call its verify endpoint and check that the payment succeeded before giving value to the customer. Shoppers can also be sent to a hosted checkout page that lists telebirr with the other local methods, then returned to the merchant’s site with a callback.
Limits are set by the provider. Chapa accepts telebirr pay-ins from ETB 1 to ETB 75,000 and offers payouts to telebirr wallets within the same range.
Where and how do shoppers use telebirr?
telebirr has national reach. Ethio Telecom reported 60.6 million registered telebirr customers for its 2025/26 fiscal year, with 2.61 billion transactions worth ETB 4.19 trillion, more than 410,700 agents and 440,100 merchants. It also disbursed ETB 19.51 billion in collateral-free loans and gathered ETB 18.75 billion in digital savings through the service.
It grew fast from a late start. The Embassy of Ethiopia reported the launch on 11 May 2021, a week after Ethio Telecom received its operating licence. By March 2023 Ethio Telecom had turned telebirr into a super app offering e-commerce, food delivery, utility bills and transport payments in one interface, with 28,000 merchants and links to 19 commercial banks at the time.
Mobile money is now mainstream. The National Bank of Ethiopia reports that mobile money users grew from under 1 million in 2020 to more than 128.5 million by 31 December 2024, and that digital transactions of ETB 9.7 trillion in the 2023/24 fiscal year exceeded cash transactions. A national interoperable QR code was introduced in late 2024, and the second phase of the National Digital Payments Strategy, for 2025 to 2029, targets wider merchant acceptance.
What rules and costs should merchants know?
Payments are in birr. Chapa’s telebirr direct charge must be made in ETB, even though its hosted checkout also accepts USD for other methods. A merchant reaches telebirr through a provider that holds the local connection; Chapa lists telebirr among 14 methods, alongside CBEBirr, M-Pesa, bank transfers and cards.
Refunds go through the provider. Chapa’s refund API supports full or partial refunds, deducts the amount from the merchant’s available balance and does not return Chapa’s own charges. A refund moves from initiated to processing and then to refunded, or to reversed if it fails, with the status available by webhook.
Disputes are handled outside card schemes. The shopper confirms every telebirr payment on their own phone, so there is no card chargeback process; questions about a payment go through the provider and the merchant’s own records.
Interoperability is a policy goal. The National Bank of Ethiopia’s second digital payments strategy targets full interoperability between banks and wallets and closer links with digital ID.
How would Omno handle telebirr?
- One checkout: telebirr would appear in the Omno hosted checkout next to cards, wallets, local methods and crypto, with a field for the shopper’s phone number. Merchants with their own payment screens would use Direct Links on their own buttons.
- Routing rules: The merchant would set rules that send ETB payments to a connected Ethiopian provider that supports telebirr. Omno connects through those providers; it is not an acquirer and does not hold funds.
- Cascading: In the hosted checkout, if the chosen provider is unavailable or rejects the request before the phone prompt is sent, the payment would move to the next provider in the rule until one accepts.
- Status and payouts: The order would stay pending until the shopper confirms on their phone, and the final result would reach the merchant by webhook. Payouts to telebirr wallets would follow what the connected provider supports.
What should merchants plan for?
Collect the right phone number. The prompt goes to the number the shopper enters, so validate it and let the shopper correct it.
Keep orders pending until verified. Release goods only after the provider confirms success, not when the shopper returns to the site.
Plan for larger baskets. Payments above the provider’s ETB 75,000 limit need another method or a split order.
Price in birr and keep refunds within the provider’s balance rules.