Zimbabwe mobile financial platforms continue to grow

By Staff reporter | 15 Jul 2019 at 16:50hrs
OneMoney
The liquidity crisis in Zimbabwe has led to an increase in the use of mobile money platforms as an alternative means of transacting. There has been an overall growth in active mobile money subscriptions across all operators with Ecocash still leading the pack with the largest number of subscribers compared to Telecash and OneMoney.

OneMoney which is a baby of state-owned enterprise NetOne recorded the biggest growth in active subscriptions. The growth in OneMoney subscribers could be attributed to the Zim-Switch enabled debit card, the "One Top-up which gives a customer a 10% discount if you purchasing using the OneMoney platform.

But despite having grown the most in terms of mobile money subscriptions OneMoney and Telecash still have a long way to go. According to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe  (POTRAZ) 1st Quater 2019 Report, Ecocash subscribers grew from 6 057 594 to 6 313 721.

Such figures are something to aspire to have when it comes to the other two competitors. This is because using the figures from the report  Telecash only registered 497 new subscribers in the 1st quarter of 2019.

OneMoney experienced an upward experience, which was a 29,2% growth but it is nothing close not even by a quarter of their competitor Ecocash. It's clear Ecocash is doing or did something write which the other two need to beat or maybe copy, their choice.

With the cash crisis in the country, the mobile money platforms also experienced a decline in the value of cash out, cross network and the overall number of transactions.

However, there has been a growth in cash – in and airtime transactions as well as bill and merchant payments. As long as it can be paid using the mobile money platforms most Zimbabweans are deciding to simply save themselves the time and the hustle of making payments with paper money.

Although the active mobile money subscriptions increased,  the mobile money transactions slipped from 456 781 697 to 391 903 588 and  Ecocash processed 99.4% of this total. With Telecash and OneMoney processing 0.1% and 0.5%  of the total mobile money transactions processed in 1 quarter of 2019

Despite who has the highest or lowest mobile money tariffs or who is growing the most, the three mobile money providers need to see to it that one can transact across different networks as cross network transactions have been constantly declining.

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