Innovation is always a good thing, even better when it addresses the real problems on the ground (not sure though if something is still worth being called an innovation if it doesn’t).

Anyway, EcoCash recently launched its latest innovation, Swipe into EcoCash. The innovation has so far been met with different responses though most seem to be positive. However, some seem to be having mixed feelings and it’s for that particular group of people that I’ve compiled this – well, those and anyone else really tbh.

So the first and obvious question would be:

Who benefits?

1. People whose banks haven’t integrated with EcoCash

If you bank with Barclays, Standard Chartered etc. and are a heavy EcoCash user (which makes most Zimbabweans considering over 80% of e-transactions are on mobile money and over 98% of those are on EcoCash), you’re likely amongst the many who rejoiced and probably still are after hearing about the Swipe Into EcoCash innovation.

I know some people might not understand why this is a big deal but you do. You know how hard it is to buy from a shop which doesn’t accept swipe but only takes EcoCash and cash. You know how hard it is to send money to someone who doesn’t have a bank account. You know how difficult it has been to buy airtime on the go. All services that the rest have been taking for granted since for them, it’s just been a walk in the park.

So good for you guys, now you can enjoy the convenience that the ‘rest’ have been enjoying.

2. EcoCash Agents – no float balance required

At the launch of the product, Natalie Jabangwe-Morris, the general manager of EcoCash mentioned how this innovation will remove the need for a float balance for EcoCash Agents when making the transaction. So for an agent to transfer funds to your account they need a float balance. However, when Swiping Into EcoCash the float being used is the one of the customer i.e. their bank float. Therefore, for an agent to facilitate the Swipe Into EcoCash transaction, they do not need a float balance.

3. People who use EcoCash plus any other mobile money platform

All along EcoCash didn’t allow for money to be sent or received from any other mobile money platform, what you could only do was send money to an unregistered customer. However, now you technically can send money from any other mobile money platform to EcoCash. Even better now that OneMoney has a debit card. How? Simple, by Swiping Into EcoCash. Remember, both Telecash and OneMoney have ZimSwitch enabled debit card which basically means they are not exempt. Therefore, you can now move your funds from any of your other mobile money wallets into your EcoCash account.

4. Ultimately everyone – more POS machines in the system

So since the innovation depends on a Point Of Sale (POS) machine, it only makes sense that EcoCash in one way or the other makes provision for some extra. For now, the SIE (allow me to call it that from now on, typing is hard work!) only works at Steward Bank POS machines. However, EcoCash promised to enable the service on more POS machines.

But here’s the catch for everyone else, whether you need the SIE service or not, EcoCash promised to add more POS machines into the system. I am pretty sure that these POS machines won’t just be for SIE otherwise that would be some serious underutilisation of resources. So the POS machines will likely be rolled out to those Agents who are also merchant so they can multitask using the machine. It’s a no brainer how good this is for the rest of us given how dependent we now are on electronic transactions due to cash shortages.

With that been said, the next question is:

But why are we not 100% happy?

Apart from haters always going to hate hate hate, yes there are still some concerns especially bearing in mind that the idea is not only meant to allow all banks to be ‘linked’ to EcoCash but ‘to replace the need to integrate with ZIPIT’. So now what are those challenges?

1. The transfer is one way

For starters, its good for us to know that customers whose banks are integrated with EcoCash can transfer their money from the bank to their wallets and vice versa.

But…

Swipe Into EcoCash as the name suggests, is a swipe into EcoCash facility (had to dump the abbrev just make this point). It doesn’t swipe out of EcoCash, by that I don’t mean it like the usual withdrawal since that’s the job of the EcoCash debit card, but rather I mean moving funds from your EcoCash wallet into your bank account. I know some might be wondering the use of moving money from EcoCash into a bank? Well, you will never know it until you encounter a situation that needs it, only then will you remember I said it!

2. Transaction depends on the availability of a POS machine

So unlike with those whose banks are integrated with EcoCash, those depending on SIE will have to have a POS machine and an agent at their disposal before they can transfer their funds from a bank account into the EcoCash wallets. So now comparing with that, it then makes sense for those who only have the SIE service as an option to feel robbed.

Also, even if we’re to compare with the other mobile money platforms that is Telecash and OneMoney which are integrated with ZIPIT, this is innovation does not provide the best of convenience. With Telecash and OneMoney you can completely send and receive money in the comfort of your own home or anywhere else really whenever need arises. However with SIE, that’s a different story…

3. You can only swipe into your own EcoCash wallet.

That’s a major bummer if you ask me.

Let’s look at it this way, on the ZIPIT ecosystem you can move funds from your account into any other account all in one transaction. For example, you can move money from your ZB bank account into anyone else’s Telecash wallet or from your OneMoney wallet into someone else’s CABS account. But not so with Swipe Into EcoCash, not so…

But then again, already whether your bank was integrated with EcoCash or not, you were (rather are since it’s still the case) only limited to sending money to and from your own accounts. So yes, I was expecting a ZIPIT integration or an innovation that allows me to send money into any account in just a single transaction. It not only saves time, but a few cents too #cheapskate.

Now your turn: What’s your take on Swipe into EcoCash? Does it address your major concerns or not???

Articles appeared first on Techzim;
How effective an innovation is Swipe into EcoCash???

In 2016 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) introduced the Financial Inclusion Strategy with the obvious aim of drawing a marginalized number of people who are unbanked into the financial system. The Strategy is highlighted by an ambitious plan to increase the banking population from 30% at the time it was implemented to at least 90% by 2020. The affirmative action targets groups such as Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs), women, youth, rural population and the small-scale agricultural sector.

Whilst the strategy seems overarching, it forgot to include Muslims who are known for not banking their money. This practice by some Muslims is not borne out of civil disobedience but a religious observance. Islam tenets discourage or forbid Muslims to associate their money with interest bearing institutions. Since conventional banks thrive on interest, some Muslims spurn banks and keep their money under their beds.

The form of banking that includes Muslims in the financial system is called Islamic Banking or popularly known as Islamic Finance.

What is Islamic Finance?

In the context of this article, Islamic Finance is a type of banking that forbids the accumulation or charging of interest by a person or a company. This prohibition stems from the verses in Koran, practices, and sayings of prophet Mahomed, Islam’s founder. Islamic Finance is a form of banking that can be done by a Muslim or non-Muslim.
Even though many people think of Islamic Finance as a branch of a broader finance category, in essence, Islamic Finance is an economic system that is different to capitalism, socialism or mixed economy because of the dominant role played by religion in creating value.

Currently, Zimbabwe doesn’t have a financial institution which satisfies the unique needs of Muslims in terms of having activities that don’t generate interest so that’s why Muslims continue being excluded in the financial system or perhaps being forced to participate against their conscience.

Why should Muslims matter to RBZ?

Zimbabwean Muslims have a population of about 100 000 and let’s suppose that all these people are not banking their money. Imagine how many customers banks are losing out by not providing banking services that meet the particular needs of Muslims. Not to mention that many Muslims in Zimbabwe are small business owners, so it can be speculated that they own a significant chunk of the total money supply.

Including Muslims in the Financial Sector…. A modest proposal

RBZ as the biggest proponent of Financial Inclusion and the regulatory authority which has financial resources should initiate the introduction of Islamic Finance through setting up a financial institution that practices this form of banking.

RBZ can encourage existing banks to open Islamic Finance windows that accommodate Muslims. An ‘Islamic window’ in Islamic Finance sense means that a bank that engages in interest-bearing activities can open up a department of Islamic banking that is divorced from the interest-bearing operations of the same bank. ABSA and FNB Bank in South Africa and many banks in Europe have opened Islamic windows that target banking needs of Muslims. And of course, the encouragement by RBZ should be underpinned by favourable regulations that lure banks.

Another alternative is RBZ partnering with investors or local banks to set up an Islamic Finance institution. Also, banks as a whole could set up an Islamic Bank that models ZimSwitch’s structure, in which all the banks have a stake.

Despite the simplistic modeling and analysis of Islamic Finance, Islamic Finance is a sector that is fast becoming attractive for Muslims and non-Muslims and a bank or microfinance institution that ventures into this sector could prosper.

Islamic Finance gained popularity just after The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 among Muslims and non-Muslims and it continues to witness exponential growth since then. RBZ should make efforts to make their Financial Inclusion Strategy a real inclusive initiative for everyone by setting institutions that meet Muslims’ banking needs.

The post Financial Inclusion Strategy For Marginalized Zimbabwean Muslims: Islamic Finance appeared first on Techzim.

Local developers have created a petition on change.org asking Telcos to create a tool that helps them better integrate their apps with local payment services in order to create better applications that are more tailored to Zimbabweans.

The petition by developers is directed to;

• Econet Wireless through the EcoCash platform
• Zimswitch
• NetOne through the OneMoney platform
• Telecel through the Telecash platform

What do the devs want?

The developers are requesting for :

• Opening a secure publicly consumable RESTful Application Programming Interface (API)
• Providing clear and concise documentation of the said API
• Ensuring acceptable uptimes and reliability of the API

Ok, that’s a bit technical so let me try help the rest of us who don’t speak ‘code’ (developers feel free to help me out –in the comments below- if I trip along the way).

What is an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface and with an API, people will be able to buy something within an app much more seamlessly. For example, in a pizza ordering application a developer would want a customer to order their pizza, add toppings and when the customer clicks buy they would be able to choose their form of payment whilst within the app and the transaction is complete. Simple. This has not been the case for local developers and either;

• The developers have to hack their way around – making their app run the USSD codes in the background when a user clicks buy. The app would then dial all the necessary codes and then leave the user to enter their pin. No small feat on the developers end.
• Users have to actually exit the app and then dial *151# (in the case of EcoCash of course) and then enter the merchant code and so forth and so on… It’s a multiple step process which is never a good thing.

Seamless use…

When things (in this case apps) just work seamlessly people are more comfortable using those things. Whereas when a user has to go through a 6-or-so step process to buy something they will just stop using the application.

With an API developers could also have an ‘EcoCash Developer Account’ that makes it easier for them to receive payments. With the hack mentioned above, developers would have to resend a code for buyers to enter in their app but with an API once the transaction goes through its done and dusted.

Another instance where an API would be beneficial to users and developers is in the following example. Let’s say a developer offers a subscription service. If there is an API integrated with the Telcos users can choose to be billed on a monthly basis without any hassle. This would mean users do not have to worry about forgetting to make the payment which would lead to inconvenience if the subscription is of importance to a user (which I assume it will be since you’re parting with your money).

Security

The API also needs to be secure. For example, if the API is insecure and one enters their PIN, the app could continue transacting on behalf of you (without authorisation) which is a problem for obvious reasons.

In the last example of a subscription service giving an insecure API access to your account every month could lead to disastrous occurrences; because of insecurities instead of paying, let’s say $5 a month, the app is now charging you $10 and it’s not clear what exactly the other $5 is for.

API’s are basically URL’s that serve as end-points to serve a specific purpose so the security is of paramount importance so that data capture at these end-points is not misused.

Why should it be clear?

Secondly, the documentation of the API should be ‘clear and concise’ so that developers know what they can and cannot do through/with said API.

Reliability

Telcos should ensure the uptimes and reliability of the API is acceptable because if the damned thing works unreliably then it doesn’t really serve the purpose of creating an API in the first place.

As I highlighted above, I’m not a developer so I may have missed something. If I did, ‘can the developers in the house please stand up!’ Your views or corrections will be much appreciated in the comments below.

Why do they want this ‘API’?

The petition itself states:

As developers and entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe, innovation and business development is inseparable from enabling seamless financial transactions in our products and services.

We’re lobbying operators that enable financial transactions in Zimbabwe to allow developers access to their services via easily consumable APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

What could be the benefits?

They believe if their request is met they will solve three problems at once! Firstly, this will enable innovative solutions to local problems. They also believe business opportunities and by extension create “much-needed employment opportunities.” Lastly, if telcos help developers with an API, developers are sure the telcos will increase their earnings by commission because of the variation of use case that will be established as a result of the move.

The petition has around 42 petitions (at the time of writing) with a target of 100. If you believe this to be worthwhile you can sign the petition here.

The post Local Developers Petitioning For Telcos To Give Them Easier Integration With Payment Platforms In Order To Grow The Economy. appeared first on Techzim.

Zimswitch Technologies is one of the most important companies in Zimbabwe’s economy right now. The business helps you and I to navigate everyday life seamlessly through their payments integration platform.

The Zimswitch Evolution

One thing they have managed to do over the years has been to evolve with the economy and every new reality in Zimbabwe. When they launched in the mid nineties the service I was most aware of (maybe because I was a kid then) was that they allowed one to withdraw from any member bank’s ATM using any other member bank debit card.

As the use of debit cards grew I started associating Zimswitch more with point of sale swiping. Their infrastructure made it possible for any debit card in Zimbabwe really to be used in any store in Zimbabwe regardless of the bank that issued the POS payment machine. It’s easy to take this integration for granted but imagine for a few seconds how grocery shopping would look like without Zimswitch especially now when cash is super rare.

Cash problems in Zimbabwe actually brought to the fore the ability of Zimswitch to adapt, evolve and solve new problems. Zipit was introduced to facilitate more real time processing of transactions between banks. The service is more real time than the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system itself!

The problem with evolution is that by definition it is not noticeable. You only see how things have changed when you look in the rear view mirror. This is definitely the case when you trace Zimswitch from the mid nineties up to now. As conditions changed, their offer changed and we never got to feel how much more adverse some of the stuff we’ve been through could have been.

Payments Conference

The Zimswitch backstory makes them qualified to convene a payments conference as they are doing in Victoria Falls from the 3rd to the 5th of May.

The event’s theme is “Sustaining digital payments in Zimbabwe and opening a gateway into SADC.” It will be interesting to know what conversations will be going on around sustaining digital payments in Zimbabwe.

The obvious one which I expected and was glad to find on the programme is interoperability. This is important if digital payments are going to go beyond where we are right now. Already Zimswitch provides an interoperable platform and API’s that other services can use to integrate Zimswitch services into their own.

Just a few banks in Zimbabwe are not available on Zimswitch. Two of the three MNO controlled mobile money services already have a relationship with Zimswitch and will be attending the conference.

SADC

Part of the theme talks of opening a gateway into SADC. That this is important is a no brainer really. Our individual economies in SADC are small and fregmented. The region gains much the more we integrate. The original objectives of SADC were economic more than political. Fighting apartheid in South Africa was predominantly going to be achieved through economic means. The region is thus more of an economic block than a political one especially after the fall of apartheid itself.

Making payments easy and seamless between member states is crucial if the potential economic activity across the block is to be realised. Technology innovation and creativity by organisations like Zimswitch within member states can and will open up the region for growth.

Be Part Of The Zimswitch Payments Conference Through Techzim

Techzim is proud to be live streaming the event so you can follow the conversations and even interact with the delegates there. We will have the live stream available here on our site and on our social media pages as well. We invite you to tune in and participate as much as the delegates there.

We mostly look forward to the participation of developers and tech entrepreneurs because the issue of payments is super important for this group of people.

The post Digital Payments In Zim Have Come A Long Way, What’s Next? Zimswitch Payments Conference Looks At That appeared first on Techzim.

We are bringing the Zimswitch Digital Payments Conference to you live under the theme Sustaining Digital Payments in Zimbabwe and creating a gateway into SADC

The Zimswitch Digital Payments Conference Live https://t.co/hx4cS4XjLI

— Techzim (@Techzim) May 4, 2018

The Zimswitch Digital Payments Conference Live https://t.co/uzP4boz3dN

— Techzim (@Techzim) May 4, 2018

The Zimswitch Digital Payments Conference Live https://t.co/WMpTp1Bz77

— Techzim (@Techzim) May 4, 2018

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Yesterday’s proposed ban of the ‘Swipe-into-Ecocash’ service didn’t go without NetOne’s notice. This morning NetOne posted pictures on their social media platforms (kind of) mocking the ‘Swipe-into-Ecocash’ service and simultaneously promoting their OneMoney (OneMoney Card to be specific) as some kind of an alternative to ‘Swipe-into-Ecocash’ service.

However, the sarcasm is misplaced. Ecocash is not a competitor to OneMoney so to me the jibe doesn’t make sense. To begin with, Ecocash is a system and OneMoney with its OneMoney card is just part of a system (Zimswitch). Furthermore, the Ecocash card is not ZimSwitch-linked like the OneMoney card meaning that the Ecocash card works in its unique-built ecosystem whereas the OneMoney card works in a borrowed system(Zimswitch).

What does this mean?

Ecocash has its own ecosystem which it does not share with banks. It means the money in an Ecocash card is not shared or switched to other banks but its circulated in the Ecocash ecosystem. Therefore, Ecocash doesn’t depend on a foreign system it has no control over. 

Whereas, OneMoney’s survival depends on the ZimSwitch Ecosystem which is shared by all banks in Zimbabwe. Since the OneMoney Card is linked to many banks (because of ZimSwitch), OneMoney has no control over the Zimswitch system and thus the money doesn’t stay in the OneMoney system.  

Actually, with the ‘Swipe-into-Ecocash’ service, OneMoney is at risk of losing money out of their wallets since people can just ‘Swipe-into-Ecocash’ using the OneMoney card. Thus transferring money from the OneMoney ecosystem into the Ecocash system.

As such OneMoney is not a competitor in the eyes of Ecocash but just a platform they are benefiting from. As far as I am concerned the only company that gives Ecocash goosebumps is ZimSwitch, not OneMoney.

In a nutshell, Ecocash is a direct competitor to Zimswitch as both institutions have platforms that circulate money in their own ecosystems.

Ecocash debit card is OneMoney’s Competitor

Rather than talking about OneMoney and Ecocash in the same breath, I would rather talk about the OneMoney debit card and Ecocash debit card.  Although OneMoney debit card and Ecocash debit card stand shoulder to shoulder to a certain extent, the Ecocash debit card is a bit above since it does international payments. Up until OneMoney collaborate with Visa or MasterCard for international payments, it will continue to lag behind Ecocash.

The post OneMoney Throws Punches At Ecocash appeared first on Techzim.

Mathematics mathematics mathematics!!! We are always told how critical it is to pass mathematics in high school. In Zimbabwe particularly, failure to pass it could make life difficult for one to get a job (to some extent) or get a place at a higher tertiary education institution (to a greater extent).

Zimbabwe has bragging rights when it comes to literacy. We are one of the topmost ranked countries in the world when it comes to literacy rates. But when it comes to mathematics, a good number of Zimbabwean really suck. Year-on-year many Zimbabwean’s reseat to write mathematics. Some people even reseat as much as 3 times just to pass mathematics. 

But don’t worry Mathematica has got your back

Mathematica Smart Learning (Mathematica) is a registered Educational technology (Edu-Tech)  start-up which seeks to solve all O and A level related numerical problems through digital technologies. Mathematica was born out of the idea to help students to easily understand difficult concepts and make studying mathematics enjoyable, so to speak.

Mathematica seeks to address the need to understand mathematics by providing students with important information on tools that they are familiar with on a daily basis that is, the mobile phone and the computer

Why is passing mathematics so hard for many Zimbabweans?

According to Mathematica;

The main challenge with O-Level Maths is that the syllabus is very long which is done over two years starting from Form 3 up to Form 4. This means that for the student to pass they should be able to process and understand two years information for them to be able to pass their final examination. The main challenge students face with the subject is that it requires one to know all the concepts as the questions that are asked in the final examination need the student to think outside the box. Most students fail because of the attitude they have towards the subject which is usually negative. The “Maths is hard” mentality is usually the downfall of many as it results in them not investing time in understanding the subject as they feel defeated before they even write the subject. The other reason why students fail is that their rate of understanding as compared to other students may be slower than the others. In a class of 40 students the teacher might not have the time to cater for the needs of all students hence the slow learners might then not be able to understand the subject better.

What does Mathematica do

Mathematica Smart Learning offers up to date syllabuses, short concepts, question papers and detailed-answered past papers from 2000 up to date (over 120 past exam papers) . “The benefits of the Mathematics is the in-depth answering of the questions using a step by step process on how the student should think when faced with a familiar question in an examination”. 

Where can I get Mathematica?

Mathematica Smart Learning is available on 3 platforms, Android for mobile smartphones, windows version for students using their personal laptops/desktops and windows version for schools using their computer laboratories.

On Android, the application is compatible on Android version 4.02 to the latest version.

For schools who would want to purchase the application on behalf of their students, they can download from our website and install the application in their school computer labs. Students then just log in using the school account to access the information from the application.

Do you pay to use Mathematica?

Since Mathematica is saving you the expense of seating for mathematics for 2 or 3 times, you only need to dish out a meager $2 a month to access its resources.

And how do I pay?

In terms of payment for both the Android and Windows application, the platforms which are acceptable include Ecocash, Telecash, One Money, ZimSwitch, V-Payments and RTGs from all banks. Also, payment is not only limited to the person who seeks to use the application, someone else can pay on behalf of the user using the same payment platform.

Personally, I think this platform can really help students to pass mathematics because teachers hardly give many of the explanations nor teach skills required to answer the questions which are in Mathematica Let alone give hints and tips.

For more information about Mathematica, visit their website

The post Passing Mathematics Just Got Easier For Students With This New Platform: Mathematica appeared first on Techzim.

Standard Chartered customers should be informed that there has been and continues to be some service disruption and the bank has been temporarily disabled from the ZIPIT platform.

FBC sent out the following message to their customers:

Please note Standard Chartered bank has been temporarily disabled on the ZIPIT platform. Communication will be sent once service is restored.

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What’s going on?

We contacted Standard Chartered Bank and we were informed that there was a ‘technical issue’ that the bank was trying to solve as quickly as possible and once this had been solved customers would be notified via SMS. The assistant I spoke to was eager to point out that the disruption was not permanent. No timeline was given of when Standard Chartered customers can expect to have their service restored.

We also tried to call Zimswitch customer support but unfortunately we could not reach them (at the time of writing). If we manage to get a comment we will update this article.

Until service is restored it may be a good idea to steer clear from trying to transact on Zimswitch POS machines since your funds may be mistakenly debited. This was not an official instruction from Standard Chartered but just a thought that popped up in my head knowing how difficult it is to reverse these transactions that fail but still get debited from your balance.

The post Standard Chartered Temporarily Disabled On ZIPIT appeared first on Techzim.

Harare City Council has just introduced an app for people to make bill payments online. Besides making payments on the app, you can also report issues related to the council, advise the council or check the refuse collection schedule. But currently these three features dont seem to be working, thus only making payments is working.

For an institution known for being reluctant to quickly embrace emerging technologies, the introduction of this app allays some of our criticisms.

How to start using the app?

To start using the Harare City Council’s app you need to sign up. Information needed to sign up ranges from phone number to email adress to a password.

After installing the app from Google Playstore, you have to to click sign up and then you are redirected to another window where you start filling in your details.

What payment methods are supported on the app?

The app supports the Paynow platform and in it, comes four payment methods, which are;

• Visa
• EcoCash
• ZimSwitch, both credit anddebit cards
• Telecash

With this app, the City Council may indirectly urge residents to embrace Electronic billpaper as part of its drive to go paperless since bill payers will find it to be a seemeless process of receiving a bill online and instantly paying it up online.

You can download Harare City Council’s app on Google Playstore.Unfortunately its not yet available for IOS users.

The post Harare City Council Now Has An App That Allows You To Make Online Bill Payments And Lodge Complaints appeared first on Techzim.

Ever made exhaustive rounds between your bank and a shop just trying to retrieve your money as a result of a failed transaction? One way these failed transactions happen is when you try to make a payment and your account is debited but without getting a notification that the payment was a success and you end up having to pay again.

From now on you will be spared that horrible experience as ZimSwitch has introduced what it calls a ZimSwitch Query and Dispute Management System (ZQDMS) which will make it way easier and much quicker for customers to resolve their queries, e.g failed transactions. With a disproportionate majority of people and companies now using electronic money in the back of chronic shortages, ZimSwitch thought it wise to come up with ZQDMS to improve the customer experience in its ecosystem.

Before the introduction of ZQDMS, you had to suffer waiting for weeks or a month at most to see your transaction reversed and have your money in the account. It was a frustrating experience for a customer. But ZQDMS improves on that by significantly cutting down the weeks of having your money back into just 48 hours. Which is laudable. It would have been way nicer if the queries were resolved within a day or in a matter of hours because most of the times you’d want to use the money urgently. But anyway 48 hours, is now relatively better.

This 48 hour is in some cases way shorter than the time EcoCash takes to return my money back in the wallet. I remember one time I accompanied my friend to tread the streets of Harare for 3 consecutive days just to retrieve his money from Ecocash. And of course, there was a bit of paperwork that was involved in that whole process.

In light of that, even though ZQDMS now reduces weeks into days, the process is still the same, you still have to make do with signing papers and filling in forms to get your money back. Accordingly, even so, ZQDMS will still need to be improved to do away with the awful paperwork and have customers retrieve their money by just interacting with ZimSwitch online.

The post ZQDMS, ZimSwitch’s New System Makes It Possible To Retrieve Your Money In 48 Hours, Not Weeks appeared first on Techzim.

Steward Bank has been hyping out launch of a new product today. Well, nothing new there. They are always launching and they are always hyping up their launches whether they deserve or not. This time from what we can gather this could be a different one.

Yes, the launch is hours late already. They wanted to do it live on Facebook but it looks like they are having problems doing that. Anyway, this gives us the conspirators time to probe and guess what they want to launch.

Comedians reveal what this could be

In their efforts to get the whole country tuning in to their Facebook Live launch which hasn’t happened yet, Steward Bank enlisted the Bustop TV comedians Gonyeti and Maggie. Yes, the duo that was recently arrested for posting stuff on Facebook.

Here’s the video Bustop TV did for them to invite all of us to tune in to the launch live stream:

Essentially what the duo are hinting at is a number that can allow you to do ‘anything.’

So what is Sosholoza?

Our very educated guess based on that little hint is that Steward Bank is launching a platform that allows you to do all your banking related stuff in one place. The issue though is not what but where.

The flyer Steward Bank has been sending around is this one:

That big WhatsApp logo there is betraying them. Steward Bank is building their next platform on WhatsApp. This may sound like a small thing but it’s a very big deal.

More than 7 million Zimbabweans are on WhatsApp. They know how to use it, they don’t need to be trained on it or to memorize short codes. All they have to do is to save whatever number Steward Bank will be using there. This opens up the bank to a far bigger addressable market.

A number that does everything

Now if by a number that does everything Gonyeti and Maggie meant that Sosholoza is an agnostic platform, then Steward Bank could just have changed the game. Let me explain:

Steward Bank already has a relationship with their fellow Cassava company, EcoCash and they have access to the EcoCash platform. It follows that Steward Bank can then be an agnostic platform that links all the mobile money service providers to one another and to all other banks. How?

OneMoney and Telecash are already on Zipit and Zimswitch. Zimswitch has a publicly available API that allows you to build on it to facilitate transactions amongst all banks on Zimswitch. This is what allows you and I to swipe our debit cards at any POS terminal regardless of which bank issued the card and which bank supplied the merchant with the POS terminal.

Steawrd Bank is on Zimswitch. So theoretically, Steward Bank can build a solution that allows customers to move money from EcoCash to OneMoney via Zimswitch and vice versa. If indeed this is what Gonyeti means by a number that does everything, if that’s what Steward Bank is supposed to have launched at 3pm today then it’s worth the wait!

Essentially Steward Bank becomes the biggest transactions platform in Zimbabwe. A beast born as a cross between EcoCash and Zimswitch. Let’s wait for the launch!

Quick NetOne, Telecel, Africom, Econet Airtime Recharge

The post What Could Be Steward Bank Launching? From The Hints They’re Dropping It Could Be HUGE appeared first on Techzim.

The second annual ZIMSWITCH Digital Payments Conference running under the theme Digital Economy For Africa was a success. With both local and international speakers sharing their knowledge on the payments landscape, those who attended benefited immensely.

If you didn’t attend but you were following the Livestream on our Twitter page, you might have been interested in obtaining the slides from some of the presentations and they are now available for download.

Zimswitch Conference 2019 Day 1

Morning Session Presentations

Afternoon Session Presentations

Zimswitch Conference 2019 Day 2

Morning Session Presentations

Afternoon Session Presentations

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There’s been a lot of talk about the new law which will force mobile money interoperability but maybe more important is the fact that the government has revealed that it is working on a new national payment switch.

The same section of the Statutory Instrument that mandates mobile network operators to enable interoperability indicates they will do so by joining a national payment switch;

You can’t send money from EcoCash to OneMoney or Telecash just yet but laws in place will change that soon;

It shall be mandatory for every money transmission provider and mobile banking provider shall be connected to a national payment switch…

S.I 80 of 2020

Reliable sources also confirmed that the government is indeed working on such a switch and one of the first questions is whether the government will turn to Zimswitch’s solution?

Zimswitch already has experience in this regard, is partly owned by the banks and has done the bulk of the work when it comes to enabling interoperability between banks and mobile money platforms (excluding EcoCash). To our knowledge, this will not be a Zimswitch solution but a new switch from the ground up.

Potential problems

The biggest problem comes from the fact that banks, mobile money service providers and other financial institutions will have to build-out infrastructure and make their existing systems compatible with the new payment switch;

For purposes of connecting to the national payment switch in terms of subsection (1) every money transmission provider and mobile banking provider shall install, deploy or commission such infrastructure and connection protocols, credentials and documentation necessary to enable integration with any recognised payment system in terms of the National Payment System Act.

That will be irritating when you consider that as I mentioned before, Zimswitch exists already and every bank and mobile money service integrated with that platform will have to go through another integration process when they did so before.

For banks this is doubly tiring not only because of the above but also because banks were working on a bulk payments platform to replace Paynet after the banks relationship with Paynet went south last year. To our knowledge that hasn’t materialised and now banks will have to plan integration with this switch as well. Far from convenient…

EcoCash…

To make matters worse, EcoCash has also become a quasi-switch in itself due to the fact that they have independently set up connections with banks and merchants separately.

The idea of Interoperability has never been too attractive to EcoCash. This was the case to the extent that Econet (now Cassava) made it possible for NetOne and Telecel subscribers to register for EcoCash and marketed that as interoperability.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see how EcoCash will avoid interoperability now that the government is mandating that everyone be a part of this switch that they are creating but I would not be surprised if they try to do so.

How will the new switch work?

From the SI issued out here’s what we know thus far regarding the switch in development;

• There will be minimum and maximum transaction limits determined by banks and mobile money service providers;
• The switch will have daily, weekly and monthly transaction limits;
• banks and mobile money operators will be able to suspend or ban users from transacting;
• RBZ will have real-time read-only access to all transactions done via the national switch;
• Banks and mobile money providers will only be allowed to review charges with permission from the RBZ;

Finally, we are not yet sure when this switch wll actually be deployed and started working. All we know is that its in the works and the government intends to roll it out as soon as possible.

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The Reserve Bank this afternoon issued a statement that made Zimswitch the national payment switch. This means that EcoCash will be relegated to just being wallet and will have to use Zimswitch as the universal transaction hub. Now, as more information about this comes out, and we see how EcoCash responds to this. Let’s have a little refresher on what Zimswitch is, how it came about and what they do.

I’m sure many of you are already familiar with Zimswitch and their services. But with every new directive issued, we seem to have to brush up on what the new thing that will be talked about, is all about.

What is ZIMSWITCH?

Founded in 1994 as a collaboration between Beverley, Barclays, CABS, Founder’s Building Society, Stanbic, and ZimBank (ZB Bank) (CBZ and Time Bank joined in 1995 and 1997 respectively). Zimswitch Technologies Private Limited is Zimbabwe’s sole electronic funds switch and clearing house.

They process domestic card based ATM (Automated Teller Machine), POS (Point of Sale) and EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).

Timeline:

• 1994 Founding of Zimswitch
• 1995 Processing of the first Zimswitch transaction
• 1996 The first Zimswitch POS transaction is processed
• 2001 Incorporated as Zimswitch Technologies Private Limited
• 2006 Zimswitch makes the move to Postilion switch for greater efficiency
• 2012 Introduced credit push to bank and credit push to mobile also known as ZIPIT
• 2013 Introduced Vpayments, for internet shopping

Zimswitch currently has 24 members:

• Africa Century
• Agribank
• Banc ABC
• CABS
• CBZ Holdings
• Ecobank
• FBC Bank Limited
• FBC Building Society
• First Capital
• Get Bucks Microfinance
• Empower Bank
• Metbank
• MyCash
• NBS
• Nedbank
• NMB
• Standard Chartered
• Steward Bank
• POSB
• Stanbic Bank
• Success Microfinance Bank
• ZB Bank
• Telecash
• OneMoney

Zimswitch services

There are over 400 Zimswitch enabled ATMs countywide

There are over 100 000 Zimswitch Point of sale machines nationwide.

ZIPIT (Zimswitch Instant Payment Interchanger Technology) any mobile user on any network with a bank account can send and receive money using ZIPIT from any other bank provided both banks are on ZIPIT.

Vpayments is Zimswitch’s online payment service

This was just a brief run through of what Zimswitch is and what services they offer. If you want something more in-depth can check out ZimSwitch: an update on the ZimSwitch Shared Services (ZSS) platform

Buy the report we did on the payments space in Zimbabwe (2018)

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RBZ announced that Zimswitch is now Zimbabwe’s national payment switch and that all monetary service providers are directed to integrate with it. What does this mean to me the customer?

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Yes EcoCash is too dominant. It had above 98% share of all mobile money transactions in the first quarter of 2020 which translates to above 80% of all transactions in Zimbabwe period. The word monopoly is a fair one.

The RBZ wants to do something about that

Yesterday, Zimbabwe’s central bank issued a communique which declared that the card switching platform, Zimswitch had been knighted ‘the national payments switch’ that every player in the payments space must connect to.

On paper, this development curtails EcoCash’s power in the consumer payments space. I say on paper because consumer behavior change does not merely come because a pronouncement has been made or that technology has been deployed to make abc possible.

EcoCash as target

There is no doubt that this announcement by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is targeted at EcoCash. Literally every bank and the other mobile money solutions are already on Zimswitch. EcoCash had no reason to be on Zimswitch. Strategically, their refusal to be on Zimswitch makes sense. Joining Zimswitch would just weaken their position in the market while propping up competitors.

To be clear: OneMoney and Telecash being on Zimswitch is not because these two mobile money platforms are ‘more reasonable.’ They joined Zimswitch because they didn’t have any choice. They were too small and did not have a merchant network as strong as EcoCash’s so they needed Zimswitch. A lot of times people fault EcoCash for not joining Zimswitch but the fact of the matter is that EcoCash would have been stupid to join Zimswitch.

So, EcoCash was not motivated to join others and the central bank sought to do something about it. Now, here we are.

Is this good for the ecosystem?

Well, is having a dominant player controlling more than 80% of consumer transactions a good thing? The simple answer is no. In all monopoly situations, the first thing to fly out the door generally is customer focus and innovation. Indeed EcoCash is a poster child for this.

OK so potentially reducing the barrier to leaving the EcoCash network is good for consumers. Is making this reality through decrees like the one issued yesterday the way to do it? No!

We have a monster problem, let’s create a bigger one

Zimswitch is the rival platform to EcoCash. It is the Mastercard to EcoCash being Visa. It therefore doesn’t make sense for RBZ to attempt to weaken EcoCash by making Zimnswitch effectively the end all and be all when it comes payments.

This is actually not a good move at all. One company can’t be favoured with monopoly status just so as to neutralise another monopoly. Contrary to beliefs out there, Zimswitch is a private business owned by private shareholders that include some of the banks. If the RBZ wanted to create a primitive base switch that everyone else connects to then they should have created it themselves not the rob Peter to pay Paul type move they played here.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter much

Monopolies are a problem mostly because they don’t result in true market/price efficiency. Services become more expensive than what the demand and supply curves would otherwise suggest. Is there a risk of transactions becoming expensive because of Zimswitch?

I don’t think that risk exists because making inter-platform transactions expensive would be self defeating for Zimswitch. If moving money from EcoCash to OneMoney is too expensive for example then customers will just stay on their respective networks i.e EcoCash customers will continue to transact exclusively on the EcoCash platform (which is extensive enough on its own). If that happens then Zimswitch will still get nothing.

So where is the problem?

Zimswitch is a private business that is run for profit. I think it is not fair that the regulator just picked one platform over the other to make payments interoperable. As a point of principle I object to the RBZ’s move here. Even bureaucratic standards were not met. The central bank did not call for tenders for the provision of a national payments switch.

If you talk to Zimswitch they will tell you that they are not in competition with EcoCash or anyone really, they are only there to facilitate interoperabilty. Perhaps that is true at some vague idealistic level but that doesn’t change the fact that Zimswitch and EcoCash are the two rival payments platforms in Zimbabwe. Addressing the dominance of one of them by just transferring the dominance to the other doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

Innovation at Zimswitch?

I have accused EcoCash of not being innovative before. That criticism extends to Zimswitch as well. Their V Payments solution for internet payments for example is terrible and unusable. As a result you can’t use local cards to pay for stuff on the web. There hasn’t been much movement from the company over these past two decades. Just like EcoCash they were happy just getting their tax out of every transaction switched through them. ZIPIT is the exception that proves the rule.

Now it’s going to be worse because they have been handed a victory. The fact of the matter is that before mobile money came on the scene banks and Zimswitch were resigned to the idea that banking and electronic transactions were for an elite class. The fear I have is that this is still the attitude of the new Goliath that the RBZ has knighted.

Should the RBZ have set up the base switch themselves?

Frankly I don’t trust the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe or the government in general. They would have thought the switch was just a cash cow and they would never have built it with the right capacity. The central bank has proven its failure too often and we don’t want them anywhere near the direct operation of one more important thing.

So what should have been done?

The model should have been closer to the one developed in India where the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is a non profit payments infrastructure company set up by the Indian central bank. This company has a broad based shareholding which represents key players in the payments space. NPCI deploys agnostic solutions that have made India one of the leaders in payments innovation in the world.

Such type of organisation is not new to Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Internet Service Providers Association (ZISPA) is an example of this kind of industry vehicle. It is a non profit organisation set up by ISPs. From the ZISPA website:

ZISPA’s main activities are:

Management of the CO.ZW domain registry on behalf of the Zimbabwe Internet community

Operation of the Zimbabwe Internet Exchange (ZINX)

Do you see that? ZISPA manages core infrastructure (ZINX) that ISPs share to be able to ‘speak’ to each other much like the payments switch we are talking about. Here is how ZISPA describes it:

ZISPA operates ZINX, the Zimbabwe Internet Exchange, which provides for peering between local Internet Service Providers. This enables them to exchange traffic directly rather than routing it through third parties which may charge for the service.

This arrangement would have made better sense not playing musical chairs with monopolies like the RBZ has done.

Buy the report we did on the payments space in Zimbabwe (2018)

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The title of this article is a paraphrase of part of the statement issued by ZANU PF today commenting on the economy. Here is the actual excerpt:

ZANU PF also wishes to commend government for the decision that it has taken to allow mobile money operators to be overseen by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe through the Zim-Switch platform.

As a matter of fact, ZANU PF considers this decision to be a masterstroke which will give an invisible hand to the government to manage and direct the country towards a common good.

The channelling of all mobile money transactions through this platform is the right thing to do and will, in the end, restore stability and sanity to the banking sector.

Mobile money transaction platforms had become a law unto themselves making rules for banks and others to comply with.

ZANU PF thus supports the measures that the government has taken in this regard as it considers them necessary medicine to cure our economy which is under siege.

The measures will no doubt in due course become a sound basis for strategic sustainable nation-building, a platform for robust employment creation for our people, stabilisation of the exchange rate and resuscitation of our key productive sectors.

The statement was issued by former minister of finance (well and other ministries really), Patrick Chinamasa in his capacity as the Acting ZANU PF Secretary for Information. It was mainly targeted at Old Mutual. ZANU PF is saying Old Mutual must de-list from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and then list on a new USD denominated stock exchange in Zimbabwe.

The RBZ decision

We expressed reservations on how the RBZ unilaterally appointed Zimswitch to be the national switch that every financial services operator must connect to. That reservation was on a point of principle about the picking of a private company to perform the role of universal infrastructure within the market that private company competes in. Oh, there were a number of objections (some very understandable) about those reservations but we stick to that position.

The expressed reservations were expressed under the assumption that the RBZ made this decision to facilitate financial inclusion through interoperability. However, it seems the motivation is not at all noble. The motivation is to curb the parallel market which will not be achieved by this move without addressing the underlying cause of the parallel market.

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On the 9th of July, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe issued a directive that made ZimSwitch the national payments switch. This meant that EcoCash was going to be relegated to being just another wallet. ZimSwitch as the national switch for Mobile Money means that one can essentially send money from EcoCash to OneMoney or Telecash or any bank account even one that is not linked to one’s EcoCash wallet (and vice versa). Well, that deadline for everyone to connect to the national switch was the 15th of August 2020.

The 15th of August was an ambitious date to set for integration on this scale. These are incredibly complex parties to bring under one umbrella. It wasn’t feasible for several platforms on different systems to be able to intergrate that quickly. We spoke to some source at EcoCash and they said that they hadn’t met the deadline and to our understanding, the other mobile money operators haven’t as well.

On that note

There was an article by Cash Talk where they attempted to see if the National Switch was in effect. The transaction they demonstrated (Sending money from EcoCash to NetOne) is something that has always been there. We reported on this in May, sending money from EcoCash to NetOne at present is the same as sending money from an EcoCash wallet to an unregistered number even an unregistered Econet number. This is not wallet to wallet interoperability.

The only way to get the money, in this case (when sent to a NetOne number from EcoCash), is to go to an Agent to cash out. The problem is that there are no agents operational to facilitate a cash-out.

The money that is sent like this will be stuck in limbo and may reverse if left unclaimed. It’s a surprise that EcoCash and other mobile money providers still have this transaction in place. Without anyone to facilitate a cash-out then there really is no point to this.

It is not clear when EcoCash, will be intergrated with ZimSwitch nor when all players will have real wallet to wallet interoperability. OneMoney and Telecash are already on Zimswitch somewhat but not to the scale demanded by the central bank now.

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The assumed deadline for the ZimSwitch’s role as the national switch was the 15th of August 2020. That deadline has passed and that led many to wonder when this measure will come into effect. Earlier this week sources at EcoCash revealed that they hadn’t met the deadline that was set by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

It would have been something of a miracle if the parties involved were able to able to intergrate by the 15th of August. In light of all of this, the RBZ’s Monetary Policy Statement gave something of an update as to the progress of all parties involved:

Pursuant to the statutory instrument, the Bank designated ZimswitchTechnologies (Private) Limited (Zimswitch) as a national payment switch, and required all payment service providers, including mobile payment operators, to be connected thereto.

With all banks and some mobile payment operators already connected to Zimswitch, connectivity by all payment service providers is expected to be completed by 30 September 2020.

Monetary Policy Statement

It is worth mentioning that outside of EcoCash mobile money operators like Telecash & OneMoney already had Zimswitch integration. However, making ZimSwitch the national switch is integration on a far deeper level. This isn’t easily achieved because EcoCash sits on a different platform and to put them on ZimSwitch was always going to be an undertaking.

Lastly, it’s safe to say that since EcoCash and others missed the original deadline. The 30th of September is surely a date that all parties involved had agreed to.

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Last week, we wrote about ZIPIT Smart, a product we are excited to see enter the market. ZIPIT has announced that their new product will be launched tomorrow.

ZIPIT Smart will allow merchants (retailers and business owners) to accept ZIPIT payments in a seamless and instant manner. Think of it as being similar to how we already make payments via EcoCash, but with your bank account instead. (Yes, you won’t need a card).

The launch of ZIPIT Smart will be held virtually from 11 am and you can follow the event live on the Facebook pages below;

• ZimSwitch Technologies
• ZTN

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