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ECONET Wireless Zimbabwe, the largest mobile telecoms company in Zimbabwe, says its mobile money service, EcoCash, has processed over $23 billion transfers over five years.

A third of this figure was transacted in the last 12 months driven by prevailing cash shortage. The hugely popular and pervasive mobile money transfer service, Econet Wireless said, has over 6.8 million mobile customers. Econet says it has over 10 million registered subscribers.

EcoCash has registered 35 percent growth in merchants to 27 000 from 20 000 last year while EcoCash agents have jumped 15 percent to 30 000 from 26 000 a year earlier.

Mr Eddie Chibi, EcoCash chief executive said the platform had processed about $15 billion worth of transfers until last year and the gross figure has shot to over $23 billion driven largely by the prevailing widespread shortage of cash, which has benefited EcoCash.

Notably, EcoCash and data services accounted for 32 percent of Econet Wireless’ total revenue of $621 million for year to February 2017.

EcoCash commands nearly 100 percent of the money transfer business. Modelled along Kenya’s M-Pesa, it has outgrown its forerunner.

“Remember we said last year that EcoCash (mobile money) transfers had reached about $15 billion, but it is this year that it has registered the biggest growth; $6 billion to $7 billion. Because of the cash shortages, many people are using EcoCash,” Mr Chibi said.

Zimbabwe is facing an acute shortage of cash due to shortage of US dollar cash, the predominant unit in a basket of foreign currencies, which Zimbabwe is getting little of due to its weak economy.

Coupled with the momentum emanating from the acute shortage of cash in the economy, Econet has benefited from strong partnerships, which saw it work with many local firms with huge staff numbers and reputable global money transfer agencies.

Among them, Mr Chibi mentioned Tongaat Hulett, which he said had a huge head count, which pays its workers using the EcoCash payroll as well as leading global transfer agents that include World Remit, CassavaRemit, Western Union, Flash and Mukuru.

EcoCash is connected to 10 local banks, among them the Government-controlled POSB, and CBZ Bank, the biggest local bank by assets, and more recently CABS, the biggest building society.

Mobile money transfer is now the most pervasive form of financial inclusion in Zimbabwe, which has a population of 14 million people.

Econet said yesterday that is one of the single biggest tax payers in Zimbabwe, having invested over $1.3 billion since dollarisation in 2009.

ICT expert Engineer Jacob Kudzai Mtisi said Zimbabwe had accepted ICT, looking at the mobile penetration rate at over 90 percent. He said Zimbabwe needed ICT innovators that can come up with financial solutions for the rural population in the form of a swap or exchange application where traders could display things they need to sell such livestock in order to facilitate cashless trade. —BH24