Happy New Year ፍራንክ Family!

And welcome to the 88th edition of ፍራንክ Digest!

If you’ve been reading Frank Digest this year, you’ve probably had at least one of these moments:

As our platform welcomes the New Year, we would like to take a break from turning boring concepts into enjoyable reads and recap a few of our favorite 2025 pieces.

From all of us at Frank Digest, thank you again for reading, sharing, replying and occasionally challenging us!

2025 Frank Digest Rewind

Finance

Before we all pretend 2025 didn’t happen and quietly abandon our 2026 resolutions, let’s rewind.

As always, Frank Digest tried to do one thing consistently: explain Ethiopia’s economy, business, and money stories in plain language, with numbers where they mattered and sarcasm where it helped.

Some articles sparked debates. Some made people uncomfortable.
Some made people forward them to group chats, which we consider the highest compliment.

Here’s a quick rewind of the themes and pieces that defined Frank Digest in 2025.

2025 was the year Ethiopian banks posted numbers so large some of them needed extra commas.

Everyone else clapped.
ፍራንክ Digest smiled, unconvinced.

In Bankers Are Smiling for the Camera, we broke down why profits were booming, why EPS numbers looked fantastic, and why a big chunk of that success had more to do with macro conditions than sudden brilliance.

If you read that article and never looked at a bank result the same way again, mission accomplished.

Another recurring theme this year was foreign banks showing interest in Ethiopia, but doing it politely and quietly.

Many articles revolved around this topic. A few that stood out include Foreign Banks, Local Drama where we explained that foreign banks are setting up their tinder profiles and highlighting their ጥሩ ጎን for Ethiopia. In Standard: The USD 198B Bank, we looked at Standard Bank not because it was standard, but because it was dramatic.

Then in Big Idea: Buy a Business, we connected the dots. Foreign players aren’t lining up to open branches on Bole Road. Closely related was Love or Red Tape? & Catching Feelings for Ethiopia which tackled a question we kept hearing all year: if foreign investors are so interested in Ethiopia, why aren’t they rushing in?

The answer was simple. Interest and entry are not the same thing.They’re looking at equity, partnerships, and existing institutions.

Foreign investors don’t hesitate because they’re unsure about Ethiopia. They hesitate because licensing, approvals, and timelines matter. Serious money doesn’t just storm in. It waits until the paperwork makes sense.

If that made you rethink what “market entry” actually looks like, good.

Meanwhile, in Too Many Banks, Too Little Bank we covered the National Bank of Ethiopia’s gentle-but-firm message to smaller banks: get bigger, get stronger, or… get lost!

The companion piece in that same edition about the limits of the digital payments boom is also very much worth a read.

2025 was also the year banks decided they didn’t just want to be banks.

In Rise of the Super Apps, we looked at the rush to build all-in-one platforms that could do everything except, well, the basics.

The ambition made sense. The execution… varied.

Everyone wanted to be the app you never delete. Not everyone wanted to fix onboarding, user experience, or reliability first.

It’s one of those articles that don’t age. It just stays relevant.

One of the most “this is real” pieces of the year were Eat Now, Pay Much Later
& Tap. Borrow. Oops!

These were about consumer behavior.

Digital loans quietly changed how people spend. Credit became frictionless. Decisions got easier. Consequences got delayed.

The reason we think these articles hit is simple: they weren’t about other people.

They were about that moment when Future You quietly starts panicking while Present You taps “confirm.”

Some stories didn’t need clever framing because everyone felt them.

Fuel prices. Transport costs. Everyday expenses creeping up while incomes politely stayed put.

In Death, Taxes & Fuel Price Hikes, and Money Just Got More Expensive we did what Frank Digest does best: explained the pain without pretending it was temporary or surprising.

Sometimes the most useful thing an article can say is: “No, you’re not imagining it.”

Finally, we spent time on something important but often oversimplified: local production.

In The Promise of ‘Made in Ethiopia’, we looked past slogans and into the hard stuff. Forex constraints. Cost structures. Scale. Competitiveness.

It was a sober look at what it actually takes to replace imports, earn forex, and make local production competitive.

This wasn’t a patriotic cheer piece, because patriotism doesn’t lower input costs. Similar themes were explored in So Much Effort, So Little Progress and Habibi, Come to Dubai!

2025 also had no shortage of ambition. From ICT parks to digital finance infrastructure, the year was full of plans that looked fantastic in presentations and struggled in practice.

In Plug and Pray, we asked the uncomfortable question: is this a strategy, or are we hoping execution magically shows up later?

That piece also aged well, mostly because the same pattern keeps repeating across sectors.

Vision is great.
Execution is “meh”.
Prayer helps, but not that much.

In Tasting the Credit Soup and Changing Lanes, we connected a lot of dots that usually get discussed separately.

Mega projects. Credit availability. Government borrowing. Bank balance sheets.

They showed how infrastructure ambition, financing decisions, and credit conditions all feed into each other. When everyone is dipping into the same pot, things get interesting very quickly.

Big dreams need big money. Big money always comes with conditions.

No Frank Digest year is complete without Ethio Telecom making an appearance.

In Ethio Telecom Packs its Bags, we looked at the double life of the state monopoly. Then in Ethio Telecom Says "Hold My ጠጅ!", we focused on the state monopoly’s gangster life! This one struck a nerve with us and with many of you.

We also looked past subscriber growth and revenue headlines and focused on what really hurt in Shoot For The Moon: foreign currency exposure and how a weakening birr can humble even the biggest balance sheet.

It also forced a second look at the share sale that didn’t quite take off, and whether Ethiopian investors were cautious… or just early.

The takeaway? Big company. Real growth. Original gangster.

Can we talk about business and finance in a way that’s informative and relatable?

We’re sure trying!

Expect another year of asking incisive questions, poking holes in press releases, and helping you figure out what’s really going on in Ethiopia’s economy.

We’d also appreciate to hear back from you on your journey with us and if there’s anything you would like to squeeze out from our collective brain. Reach out to us on [email protected] and we promise to get back to you.

Thanks for reading. Here’s to keeping it frank.

Thanks for sticking with us, ፍራንክ family! Keep those wallets smart and your inbox open - we’ll be sliding in next week!