Cooperative Bank of Oromia

Cooperative Bank of Oromia

Company type	Share Company
Industry	Financial Institution
Founded	29 October 2004
Headquarters	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Key people	Obbo Fikru Deksisa, Board Chair Person Obbo Deribie Asfaw, President Obbo Ahmed Hassen, Vice President, Corporate and Institutional Banking Obbo Aman Semir, Vice President, Information Systems Management. Obbo Desalegn Tadesse, Vice President, Retail and SME Banking.
Products	Financial services
Total assets	52.92 ETB (As of June, 2020)
Number of employees	4,300+ (As of December, 2019)
Website	www.coopbankoromia.com.et

Cooperative Bank of Oromia is a private commercial bank in Ethiopia. As of June 2020, the bank has about 6.25 Million account holders, which makes the bank the leading private bank in this regard. The bank has 420 branches, of which more than 80% are outside the capital where the industry average is still less than 60%, this is a clear indication of the bank's focus to the grassroots level. According to the June 2020 report, Cooperative Bank of Oromia (Coopbank) has ETB 52.92 billion in assets, ETB 3 billion capital, and ETB 45.52 billion in deposits, making the bank among the top three private banks in the country on major indicators. Moreover, the bank amassed a profit of ETB 1.9 Billion (Before provision and depreciation). The bank's headquarters is located in Addis Ababa, Africa Avenue Flamingo area. The bank has a broad ownership base and diversified ownership structure.

History

The history of co-operative banks has been traced back to the financial exclusion faced by many communities in 19th century. With the industrial revolution, the emerging financial services sector was primarily focused on wealthy individuals and large enterprises in urban areas. The rural population, particularly farmers, small businesses and the communities they supported, were excluded from financial services. Thus, co-operative banks were originally set up to correct this market failure and to overcome the associated problems of asymmetric information in favor of borrowers. Beginning in Germany, the co-operative banking concept gradually spread to the rest of the continent and to the Nordic countries.

In respect of Ethiopia, the country has a very low financial service coverage as mainstream financial institutions are heavily tilted towards the urban centers with good physical infrastructure, leaving the rural areas underserved. Traditionally, ‘Equbs’ and ‘Idirs’ are informal institutions that are deeply ingrained in the life communities and have also been serving financial needs of the society. Reluctance and low capacity of the financial institutions in the country to serve rural community, a demand-supply gap prevailed in financial market especially in rural areas, coupled with farmers awareness to be organized in to cooperatives and the increasing need to finance cooperatives’ called for establishment of a cooperative bank. Furthermore, finance appeared to be the critical bottleneck to sustain the cooperative institutions and ultimately the farmers. It was all these glitches that initiated the inception and establishment of Cooperative Bank of Oromia.

Obbo Haile Gebre Lube, regarded as the founding father (proponent) of Ethiopia’s cooperatives, brought the idea of founding the bank for he believed that the best way to fight poverty is through cooperation. Formally establishing a project once in 2002, the bank’s formation was realized with majority of shareholders being the cooperative societies. The bank then is commercially licensed in October 2004 and commenced operations in March 2005. As there is no legal provisions that allow establishment of a cooperative bank in the country, the bank was registered in accordance with article 304 of the commercial code of Ethiopia.

References

Annual Report