The ZW$ has been holding strong against the USD for the past few months, however, you still don’t want to hold on to it – spend it, convert it, or invest it. Okay, protecting yourself against a depreciating local currency is not the only reason to invest.
I am glad it has never been easier to invest on the stock exchange in Zimbabwe. We have talked about C-Trade before and how it allows ordinary folk like you and me to own a piece of Econet, for example. You can buy shares for as little as ZW$5,000 (less than US$1.)
Now, C-Trade introduced a card payment facility with effect from 30 November 2023. This enables retail investors (you and me) to top up their wallets from these specific local bank cards POSB, AFC, CABS and FBC. C-Trade says more are coming.
C-Trade explains why this is exciting, “With the addition of this service, C-Trade clients will now conveniently fund their wallet, and the funds reflecting for trading instantly. The minimum top-up amount for investing using C-TRADE through ZimSwitch is ZWL 5000 (excluding transfer charges).”
How to deposit ZWL on the C-TRADE Web portal and Mobile app through ZimSwitch:
1. Log in on the platform
2. Click on the deposit button
3. On the deposit form please select currency as ZWL, select payment method as ZimSwitch Direct Debit, and enter the amount you would like to deposit
4. Click on the deposit button at the bottom
5. You will be redirected to the ZimSwitch page where you will enter your local bank card number, cardholder name, expiry date, and CVV
6. After clicking the pay now button, you will get a 6-digit OTP on your phone and then enter it into the required field.
7. You will be redirected to the C-trade App after successfully depositing.
Zimswitch Online
We talked about ZimSwitch Online some weeks ago. Zimswitch Online enables locally banked customers to make online payments using their local debit cards easily. Exactly how you use Mastercard and Visa to pay for stuff online.
This Zimswitch Online is what allows C-Trade to offer this new card payment facility.
Paynow added Zimswitch Online a while back and other payment gateways are working on the integration. We shall see more use cases of this new Zimswitch Online.
It’s unfortunate that the country is increasingly adopting the US dollar as its currency, leading to a decline in electronic transactions. As a result, Zimswitch Online will not be as widely used as it could have been if it had launched earlier when electronic transactions were more common in the country.
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