Hey crew, here’s to another week of cutting through the noise and focusing on what actually moves financial minds forward.

Just the stuff affecting wallets, business & the economy:

🌹 Are Ethiopian Banks Financing Women to Grow?

🍔 Is There Such A Thing As Free Lunch?

Here’s to the 129th weekly edition

Let’s dive in.

A woman walks into a bank to borrow money for her business.

When she asks for a loan large enough to buy equipment or stock up before prices rise, the conversation leads to how much collateral do you have? Can you provide audited financial statements? What other assets can you pledge?

This is where having access to useful finance becomes important and Ethiopia's financial sector is making progress in this regard and also giving due attention on women's financial inclusion.

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) issues a specific progress report named Women’s Financial Inclusion Scorecard, covering all 32 banks.

Are Ethiopian women simply opening bank accounts or becoming better financed entrepreneurs?

NBE deliberately designed the scorecard to move the discussion beyond counting accounts and toward measuring whether financial institutions are actually serving women effectively.

Consider traditional bank lending. Women accounted for 28.5% of traditional loans by number in 2025, close to the NBE's 30% benchmark. But they received only 17.3% of the total value of those loans.

This would suggest women are getting a meaningful share of loans, but their share of the money being lent is considerably smaller. To address this, financial innovation becomes important.

The NBE scorecard defines innovative credit much more broadly: digital and cash-flow-based lending, alternative data, revenue-based financing, psychometric credit scoring, inventory-based lending and other approaches that do not depend entirely on conventional collateral.

There are already examples of what this can look like in Ethiopia.

A World Bank-supported pilot with the Cooperative Bank of Oromia, for example, introduced revenue-based financing for small businesses. One entrepreneur received a $1,700 loan to expand her shop. Instead of a fixed monthly repayment schedule, repayments were linked to her revenue recorded through a digital sales platform.

When sales were strong, repayment increased; when business slowed, the repayment burden fell. That is a clever loan product.

An effective financial product would encourage entrepreneurs to build a credit history without necessarily requiring collateral.

It illustrates a different philosophy of lending: finance the business's cash flow rather than simply finance its collateral.

The World Bank's experience with the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project is particularly instructive. Since 2012, the program has helped tens of thousands of Ethiopian women obtain business loans, while its broader support has combined finance with training and business development.

IFC is also putting more capital behind this idea. In 2025, it announced a local-currency financing facility for VisionFund Microfinance Institution, with at least half of the proceeds dedicated to women-owned businesses. In 2026, IFC announced a risk-sharing facility with Dashen Bank specifically supporting SME lending, including businesses that are women-owned or led.

The 2026 scorecard suggests Ethiopia's banking sector is beginning to move in the right direction, but the transition is incomplete.

For the Ethiopian entrepreneur, the lesson is simple: don't measure your financial inclusion by how easy it is to open a bank account. Measure it by how accessible and useful the financial products are to help you make better business decisions and withstand shocks.

Keep basic records of sales, purchases, inventory and cash flow. Use digital payments where they make sense. Build a transaction history.

When approaching a lender ask “What type of financing matches the way my business generates cash?”

These steps may seem mundane. But they turn an informal business history into something a financial institution can see, analyze and potentially finance.

Take these practical steps to take advantage of innovative financial products:

1. Build a financial footprint. Keep business transactions separate and use bank or digital accounts consistently. A documented cash flow can become an asset when applying for finance.

2. Look beyond conventional collateral. Ask financial institutions about cash-flow-based lending, digital credit, movable collaterals.

3. Judge financial inclusion by business outcomes. Assess your financial facility options in helping you survive inflation, manage working capital and invest in the next stage of growth.

One man buys shares to make money. Another buys shares to get lunch.

A Malaysian food influencer reportedly spent about $18 on 100 shares of a publicly listed company.

Not because he expected a spectacular return, but because owning the shares gave him access to the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM), where a free buffet awaited.

His punchline? “You buy share for profit, I buy share for huge chunk of meat, we are not the same.”

After the share price reportedly fell about 3%, he calculated that his lunch had effectively cost him around $0.50. There was just one problem: he wasn't particularly impressed by the food.

It's a wonderfully silly story.

Beneath the joke lies an interesting financial question: Can you find value in something by looking beyond its obvious purpose?

Not quite. In the strict financial sense, arbitrage involves exploiting price differences between equivalent assets to make a profit, ideally with little or no risk.

Buying shares to gain access to a buffet is something different: the investor is seeking an added benefit from an investment.

But the underlying principle is worth exploring. Sometimes, an opportunity's value lies in something that other people overlook.

The important part is to calculate the net benefit, rather than getting carried away by the word “free.”

Suppose the shares cost $18, transaction fees add $0.10, and travelling to the meeting costs another $2. If the meal is worth $5 to the investor, the total cost is $20.10 for a benefit valued at $5. Before considering the investment risk of a change in the shares' value.

Suddenly, that free buffet can turn out to be a loss maker. The eventual outcome depends on the price at which the investor sells, as well as any dividends received.

The lesson? A perk can make an investment more attractive, but it doesn't make the underlying investment a good one.

The Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) provides a natural place to investigate. Its listed companies include Sidama Bank, Bank of Abyssinia, Abay Bank, Ethio Telecom, Awash Bank, Gadaa Bank and Wegagen Bank.

Seven companies. Seven potential lunches?

It's an entertaining possibility, but we shouldn't assume that every AGM comes with a buffet or that shareholders are entitled to gifts. Some companies may provide refreshments or corporate materials (notebooks, pens, etc.); others may offer no meaningful perk beyond participation in the meeting itself.

These benefits need to be verified individually. Sheger Gebeta style reviews would come in handy to rate the best catered AGMs.

So, before buying shares in the hope of enjoying a free meal, an investor should check the company's AGM announcement, contact its investor-relations team where available, and confirm whether refreshments, gifts or other benefits are offered.

They should also establish the eligibility requirements, including any share-ownership or registration deadlines.

Would be quite a confusing but a funny call to have with the Investor Relations department 😂

And even if a company does offer one, does the benefit justify the cost of participating?

Entrepreneurs face similar choices every day.

A supplier offers a discount for buying in bulk. A bank bundles extra services but charges monthly fees to your account. A retailer promises a gift for reaching a spending target. A customer offers a larger order in exchange for a lower unit price.

Any of these could be a good deal but every offer comes with a cost.

Buying more inventory to secure a discount may tie up cash in slow-moving stock. A free gift may be worth little if you have no use for it. And accepting a large order at a lower price may increase sales while quietly eroding your profit margin.

The right question is would you still make this decision without the extra benefit?

The Malaysian influencer may have found an amusing way to get lunch. His story illustrates how opportunities can hide in unexpected places.

Just remember: a free lunch is only a bargain when what you give up to get it costs less than the value you receive…we know it’s a mouthful! Pun absolutely intended.