As of June 2021, it had about 1.1 trillion birr in assets and held approximately 67% of deposits and about 53% of all bank loans in the country.

The bank has around more than 35,000 employees as of June 2022, who staff its headquarters and its over 1000+ branches positioned in the main cities and regional towns.

[3] After the Ethiopian victory over Italy during World War II, the new government issued a proclamation on 26 August 1942 that established the State Bank of Ethiopia (SBE).

At some point after the creation of the State Bank of Ethiopia it reopened the transit office, which in time became a branch.

[7] In February 2022, the government restructured CBE and signed a contract with Royal Bank of Scotland for management consultancy services.

However, for the past three or more decades, the bank has been protected by Ethiopian government from domestic competitive pressures in different ways.

One form of such protection is that to put the bank to be a sole mobilizer and administrator of almost all low cost public funds.

In fact, the bank has been serving as a primary source of funds for almost every mega projects of Ethiopian government, but at the cost of credit misallocation.

[12] On 15 March 2024, reports were circulated on social media that the bank was compromised for night between 12 a.m. and 3 a.m. Users can transfer large amount of money that their account don't have and access ATM machines without actual deposit.