Comparison: Zimbabwe’s mobile banking services transacting fees

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November 23rd, 2011

11

In Zimbabwe, those in tech (and banking) will remember 2011 as the year of mobile banking. Not in the sense of the use of mobile banking services by Zimbabweans, but more that it’s the year almost every financial institution and all mobile operators launched.

One of the issues that have slowed adoption (or at least that discouraged some of us) is the cost of transacting. Last month for example, we compared the transacting costs of EcoCash to Safaricom’s M-PESA in Kenya and the conclusions we drew were that EcoCash was priced quite high.

To be clear, choosing one service over another is not just an issue of price. There are other things as well. How convenient the service is being a major one. A game of trade-offs like most things.

We post below a comparison of the transacting fees of the most visible mobile banking services available. The second diagram is an example of transferring $25 and $200 from the different institutions. We will be posting updates as more banks (and telecom operators) launch.

Update (Nov 23): We were informed by Econet through the comments that the Balance Enquiry and Money Transfer fees were revised downwards weeks ago and that they just hadn’t updated their website (where we took the figures) yet. We have updated the tables accordingly.

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  • Karl tavengwa

    econet should just stop overcharging for its services like that…considering the fact that it has a clear monopoly of the market…

  • Sekuru

    Who is going to stop them

  • Econet Guy

    Our website was has not been updated with the new tariffs but the pricing changed weeks ago. 

    The balance enquiry fee is now $0.00 and there is a $6 limit on any transfers.

  • http://www.techzim.co.zw L.S.M. Kabweza

    thanks for the update  @8b9d1df48c510292b8b4dffae48c45e4:disqus . Updated.

  • Anonymous

    econet is the leader in overcharging, everything they do is just overpriced and sometimes they do not deliver for such a higher price!

  • Sekuru

    This is true! But the only way you can stop this is through telecom legislation which needs to be done by the government. The only choice left to the regular people is to petition MPs to pass better laws………

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  • Tafmak3000

    It might not be a case of econet overcharging as much as it is the other companies undercharging. Remember because of the monopoly you say Econet has, many of these companies have to charge significantly lower to get noticed. That doesn’t mean they offer the same quality. It goes back to the Econet Powertel argument and you quickly realise that cheap often has nothing to do with better.

  • Tafmak3000

    Some of these services are not as expensive as we imagine, considering the size of the market, economies of scale and the cost of doing business in Zimbabwe. Don’t you find it interesting that any company that has tried to charge less will almost inevitably crash and fall back into oblivion.

  • Tafmak3000

    There is also the case of this very vocal fictitious middle class that Okays all these ridiculous prices! remeber as far as these services are concerned Econet is not serving every one, its serving those who afford it

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