At an event earlier today NetOne revealed the some of the winners of the Fees for Less promotion but during this event we got wind of a more exciting development concerning the OneMoney brand. It seems they are trying to bolster their merchant network and are currently in the testing phase with the OK retail chain of supermarkets.
This was revealed by NetOne’s Marketing and PR Executive Eldrette Shereni in response to one of the winners questions, who had enquired if OneMoney would be making its way into the shops as a payment method as the only (in most shops) method of payment right now was swipe or EcoCash. She disclosed:
*We are piloting the system at OK Eastgate and OK Mbare. With this system even if you forget your phone somewhere the till operator can just enter your number and you can enter your pin. So even if you forget your phone or the card you will be able to transact.
We are still in the testing phase for this project with those two Ok supermarket. Once testing is done it will be in all the OKs. We are also trying to roll out this solution before the grand challenge is over.
So it seems this solution is around the corner as the OK Grand Challenge will be ending on the 1st of June. This was an interesting quote for a number of reasons…
More convenient system on the way?
This however, does introduce security concerns in this whole equation. With this new system, as long as someone (e.g. your spouse/child) knows your OneMoney password they might be able to transact in your absence and buy something that you do not necessarily approve of, so I guess the convenience may come at a cost. Overall though I do think this convenience is a good option to have because there are instances where customers go to a shop only to realise they left their card or phone and because of that they cannot transact, just like the guy who asked the question that got Shereni to reveal this information.
OneMoney putting up a fight…
When EcoCash started to open their door to users on other networks, we began wondering if this was the beginning of the end of the OneMoney and Telecash services. Recent moves by NetOne show that they are alive and kicking. Firstly, OneMoney recently hired a new Managing Director for their Mobile Financial Services division which is not something they would commit to had they given up on the mobile money field.
More recently, they’ve been offering incentives for parents to join their mobile money service through the aforementioned Fees for Less promotion which ensures that the first 100 parents who pay for fees using OneMoney can get a portion of that fees back. This is a great initiative but when NetOne where advertising this promotion they had stated that they would be refunding 100% of the fees. Anyway we will talk about this soon enough.
The Fees for less promotion was also an incentive for schools to register on the platform and once again this is a good way to build up the OneMoney merchant network so it’s a win-win for both subscribers and NetOne.
This latest coupling with OK means NetOne are definitely trying to enter the retail space and even though they are behind Econet it’s a good thing that they are making these moves because at the end of the day the monopoly of EcoCash is not very healthy. The competition is also very vital and if ever OneMoney reaches the heights of EcoCash they will continue to push each other to innovate and this can only result in better services for end users i.e. you and me.
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3 comments
Well Done NetOne, a good move. What you have disclosed, however, reminds me of the word “laggards” from a Marketing module years back when i was at college.
The problem with One Money is not that there is anything wrong with it. It is a useful product however it has nothing special that sets it apart from Ecocash. What OneMoney can do Ecocash can do so there is really not much point to it.
True. There is very little reason to jump on board but I guess once they catch up people can really compare the services based on costs and service.