Bank Account Verification in Ethiopia

Verify an Ethiopian bank account and retrieve the account holder's name before initiating a transfer.

Ethiopia account verification routes through the national interoperability hub, which connects 43 financial institutions across the country (banks, microfinance institutions, and mobile wallets).

Prerequisites

You'll need an API key. See Quickstart or Authentication if you don't have one yet.

Note: Verification endpoints use an API key in the X-API-Key header — not a Bearer token. Verification POST requests also require an Idempotency-Key header.

Make the verification request

curl -X POST https://api.lira.com/api/v1/verify/account \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: YOUR_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "accountNumber": "1000000000001",
    "country": "ET",
    "bankCode": "231402"
  }'

The example uses the sandbox test account 1000000000001. For live calls, pass the real customer account number.

Request body fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
`accountNumber`	string	Yes	The bank account number to verify.
`country`	string	Yes	Always `ET`.
`bankCode`	string	Yes	The institution code (6 digits). See the supported banks table below.

Note: mode: "async" is not supported for Ethiopia. All ET verifications are synchronous.

Supported banks

Use one of the following bankCode values when verifying an Ethiopian bank account.

`bankCode`	Bank Name
`231416`	Abay Bank
`231417`	Addis Bank
`231431`	Ahadu Bank
`231448`	Amhara Bank
`231443`	Anbesa Int. Bank
`231404`	Awash Bank
`231415`	Berhan International Bank
`231414`	Bunna Bank
`231439`	CBE BIRR
`231402`	Commercial Bank of Ethiopia
`231410`	Cooperative Bank of Oromia
`231405`	Dashen Bank
`231476`	Dedebit MFI
`231451`	DIRE MFI
`231419`	Enat Bank
`231457`	Gadaa Bank
`231418`	Global Bank Ethiopia s.c
`231444`	Goh Betoch
`231455`	H-Cash Wallet
`231463`	HALAL PAY
`231408`	Hibret Bank
`231427`	Hijra Bank
`231438`	KAAFI Micro Finance
`231442`	Kacha
`231409`	Nib Bank
`231475`	Nisir Microfinance Institution S.C
`231441`	One MFI
`231460`	Oromia Bank
`231467`	Rammis Bank
`231426`	Rays Micro Finance Institution
`231462`	SAHAL MICROFINANCE
`231436`	Shabelle Bank
`231461`	Sidama Bank
`231430`	Siinqee Bank
`231459`	Siket Bank
`231421`	Somali Micro Finanace
`231456`	Tsedey Bank
`231432`	TSEHAY BANK
`231465`	Vision Fund Micro Finance
`231407`	Wegagen Bank
`231466`	YaYa PII
`231428`	ZamZam Bank
`231412`	Zemen Bank

Tip: The same list is available programmatically at GET /countries/ET/banks if you'd prefer to fetch it at runtime instead of hardcoding.

Read the result

Successful verification

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-...-...-...-...",
  "status": "success",
  "verificationType": "ACCOUNT_NUMBER",
  "identifier": "1000000000001",
  "country": "ET",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-05-20T10:05:00.000Z",
  "verified": true,
  "accountNumber": "1000000000001",
  "accountName": "Sandbox Bekele",
  "bankCode": "231402",
  "bankName": "Commercial Bank of Ethiopia"
}

Failed verification

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-...-...-...-...",
  "status": "failed",
  "verificationType": "ACCOUNT_NUMBER",
  "identifier": "1000000000002",
  "country": "ET",
  "verifiedAt": "2026-05-20T10:05:00.000Z",
  "verified": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "INVALID_ACCOUNT",
    "message": "Account not found"
  }
}

Note: A 200 OK HTTP response does not mean the verification succeeded. Always check the status field.

Error handling

`error.code`	Cause	Action
`INVALID_ACCOUNT`	Account number not found at the specified bank	Ask the user to check their account number and bank selection
`UNKNOWN_BANK`	`bankCode` not in the supported list	Check the `bankCode` against the supported banks table
`PROVIDER_ERROR`	Upstream system returned an error	Retry with exponential backoff
`PROVIDER_TIMEOUT`	Upstream system timed out	Retry — transient error

For the full error code reference, see Errors.

Sandbox testing

Use a sandbox API key with these deterministic identifiers to exercise success, not-found, and provider-error paths without calling the upstream network. All sandbox calls are free.

`accountNumber`	`bankCode`	Scenario	Returns
`1000000000001`	`231402`	SUCCESS	`accountName: "Sandbox Bekele"`
`1000000000002`	`231402`	NOT_FOUND	`error.code: "ACCOUNT_NOT_FOUND"`
`1000000000003`	`231402`	PROVIDER_ERROR	`error.code: "PROVIDER_ERROR"`

See Sandbox Test Numbers for the complete sandbox reference across countries and verification types.

Next steps

Phone Number in Ethiopia — verify Ethiopian mobile-wallet subscribers
Bank Account Overview — general bank account verification guide
Errors — complete error code reference

Bank Account in Tanzania

Overview