It is found in Africa and is native to Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The female is a dull greenish-olive but has black flight feathers and a yellow bill.

[2] The oriole finch was formally described in 1843 by the British zoologist Louis Fraser under the binomial name Coccothraustes olivaceus.

In their phylogenetic analysis published in 2012, Zuccon and colleagues found that the oriole finch was sister to the genus Serinus.

[6] This contrasts with an earlier 2009 analysis by Nguembock and colleagues which found that the oriole finch was sister to the genus Carduelis.