Author: Tinashe Nyahasha

  • Death on our roads, here’s how a WhatsApp group is helping save lives

    Death on our roads, here’s how a WhatsApp group is helping save lives

    When I first heard of ConCERT, I was really impressed and my optimism in humanity was given a boost. This is a group of volunteers who decided to make a difference in a very real way and using a technology that we are now taking for granted: a WhatsApp group.

    What is ConCERT?

    Their full name is Converge Community Emergency Response Team. They are a group of properly trained first aid volunteers who coordinate themselves via WhatsApp groups to respond to road traffic accidents giving much needed first aid and stabilisation before an ambulance gets to the scene.

    Zimbabwe’s deadly roads

    ConCERT volunteer at accident scene

    I am sure by now, you have already heard that per capita, Zimbabwe has the most fatalities due to road accidents in the world. If you drive in Harare and on our highways, you are definitely not surprised by this assertion. The truth is, a lot of what we call road accidents in Zimbabwe are not accidents but merely road crimes resulting in collisions and the like.

    According to the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe, on average, there is an accident occurring every 15 minutes in Zimbabwe and these accidents are claiming 150 lives every month. What’s worse: the majority of those dying are aged between 25 and 45 which has lots of economic ripple effects besides the devastating loss of life under such traumatic circumstances.

    Zimbabwe’s broken emergency infrastructure

    I lost a newfound friend a few months ago. She was involved in a road accident. Good Samaritans rushed her to Sally Mugabe Hospital but she died several hours later in the parking lot of that hospital waiting to be attended to. Stories like these ones and worse are now so common in this country that we have become somewhat numb to them, unfortunately.

    The situation gets worse when it comes to the response times when accidents occur. The national emergency dispatch hotlines don’t work. Healthcare at private facilities has become a “pay right away before we can do anything for you” kind of affair. This is where ConvergeCERT comes in.

    How Converge volunteers work

    I first heard of this group several months ago. I immediately asked to be added to the WhatsApp group where I have been lurking and observing how passionately these people do a critical job that no one is paying them for. The group has people of all age groups, gender, races and economic means but all of them just passionate to save even one life if they can.

    Typically one member of the group notifies the group when a road accident occurs, this is like “dispatch.” A lot of times these notifications come in just a few minutes from the accident occurring. Usually the person notifying will be headed to the site or already there to assist with first aid. Other members of the group then jump in to notify the police and call an ambulance. Some actually go to pick up the police since sometimes the police will not have transportation.

    Besides first aid, the responders secure the site, clear the road and help to ensure the site itself does not cause a secondary accident. Throughout all this there will be massive communication in the group, everyone focused on helping in this situation. Unlike our private healthcare system, these responders just go on the scene to help. They are not paid and do not need to first know if people needing assistance have medical aid or anything like that.

    How did all this start?

    ConCERT was founded by a guy called Webster Jaricha in May 2022. Webster is a qualified Ambulance Technician, Emergency Medical Dispatcher and First Aid instructor who has over a decade of experience in Prehospital Care and Emergency Medical Services training.

    He used to work for Mars Ambulances then PSMI Emras ambulances where he was also a training instructor on emergency response. He later went to Ace Air and Ambulance where he eventually became the chief instructor.

    Webster then founded Converge Health and Safety, a training business that trains businesses and individuals on first aid and emergency response. It was through this business that Webster started training individuals for a fee as low as $10 just to make these life saving skills as accessible as possible.

    It is some of these trainees that Webster then organised into emergency responders to give roadside assistance and to bridge gaps in our national infrastructure. To date Webster has trained about 300 people in life saving skills and ConCERT has responded to more than 100 road accidents.

    What needs does ConCERT have?

    For most of the time I have been in the ConCERT group, the members have been trying among themselves to raise money to buy two motorcycles that will enable them to access accidents sites much quicker even when there is dense traffic. I liked the transparency of how the money is being raised. Donors were given the account details of the bike sellers where they can deposit funds directly and obtain a receipt.

    For months, the group has not been able to raise enough even for one bike. Maybe those who dish out Toyota Aquas could contribute to something more meaningful for a change (silently if they can – no image washing with stuff like this please!). More seriously, you might want to consider chipping in and helping with the acquisition of the two bikes or maybe more.

    What’s in the future?

    Webster plans on figuring out a business model for this service so as to make it self sustaining. Right now it’s the community on the WhatsApp group that chips in here and there to fund their modest needs. Other funding comes from Webster’s training business as well as from One Life Aqua, a swimming training business from whose premises Webster operates. The founder of One Life Aqua, Edric Gonzongere is now doubling up as the ConCERT Administrative Director.

    Interested in helping?

    You can visit ConCERT at One Life Aqua, Number 10 Dorset Road, Mount Pleasant. Email them at convergence.zim@gmail.com or call/WhatsApp Webster at +263775 471 922 or Edric at +263772 288 999

  • Civil servants you can now buy “Zim’s Openview” on credit via Techzim WhatsApp

    Civil servants you can now buy “Zim’s Openview” on credit via Techzim WhatsApp

    We have been talking about Zimbabwe’s digital migration of broadcasting signal finally arriving. Yours truly are selling the decoders you need for you to access Zim channels in HD – yes no showers! In fact most channels on DStv are in SD meaning they have inferior picture quality to what you get via this decoder for all channels.

    Zim’s Openview?

    Frankly I don’t really like that term but I have heard a few people call it that and it seems to be the easiest thing for folks who don’t know about this digital decoder to understand. However, I must hasten to say please don’t expect to find the channels you would find on Openview. This is a decoder with Zimbabwean channels.

    The similarity with Openview is that, you don’t need to subscribe to access these channels. Once you buy the decoder, you have the channels. If you need a reminder of the channels you get, here it is:

    • ZBC TV
    • Jive TV (a music channel)
    • ZTN Prime
    • 3Ktv
    • NRtv
    • Keyona TV
    • ZBC News24 (soon coming)

    2 other TV channels will be coming soon as well. You also access all the national radio stations i.e. ZiFM, StarFM and the four ZBC radio stations – Power FM, Classic FM, National FM and Radio Zimbabwe.

    Civil servants we’ve got you

    Through our financing partner, Bridgevest Capital, we are selling these on credit to civil servants. Delivery will be soon after the credit application has been approved by SSB.

    How do you apply?

    You do everything via WhatsApp using the Techzim WhatsApp bot. When you are asked to select how you want to pay, just choose the “Civil Servants Credit” option. It will look like the below screenshot:

    When you do so, the bot will start asking you questions needed for your credit application which it fills in automatically for you and it will ask you to send pictures of your ID and payslip as well as a passport size photo of yourself or even selfie will do. That’s all!

    To buy on credit or cash or Ecocash or Innbucks send the keyword “Decoder1” to the Techzim WhatsApp bot: 0717684274 or simply tap on this click to chat link which will take you to WhatsApp.

    How much?

    Price depends on options you choose and where you are. If you are in Harare and Bulawayo you can choose to pay for installation instead of just delivery. For those outside these cities, in a handful of places the kit will work without the need for a satellite dish but in most other places you will need a satellite dish as well so the total price will be different. Don’t worry, in your buying process on WhatsApp, the bot will tell you whether you need a dish or not after you enter your location.

    There you go, get your Zim version of Openview, it’s easy!

  • How to install the Zimdigital decoder (for dummies)

    How to install the Zimdigital decoder (for dummies)

    So yes, the decades late migration of television and radio to digital is finally tangible to the average person in Zimbabwe. And yes, the decoders aka set top boxes are available and you can buy them through the Techzim WhatsApp bot. Old news but in selling these we have discovered that setting up and getting going is not something to take for granted. Hope this assume-no-one-knows-anything level “manual” helps!

    Step 1: Buy the kit and get it delivered

    (We did say assume nothing…) Send the keyword decoder1 to WhatsApp number 0717 684 274 or use this click to chat link. You can pay in USD or ZiG at the official rate using Ecocash, Innbucks or Onemoney. If you have cash, don’t worry, you can also do cash on delivery.

    Step 2: Take it out of the box…

    Well nothing should be considered obvious. Reminder of what you get out of the box:

    • The decoder,
    • An indoor antenna and its cable,
    • Outdoor antenna and its cable,
    • An instruction manual on how to set up the antenna,
    • A remote control unit and a pack of batteries for the remote,
    • An HDMI cable to connect the decoder to your TV
    • A set of AV cables just in case your TV does not accept HDMI

    Step 3: Set up the antenna or satellite dish

    A few reminders first:

    1. For Harare and Bulawayo you can choose to have Techzim install for you when you buy. This service will be coming to more places in the near future.
    2. For most places you will need a satellite dish to access signal. The dish is sold separately. In select places you can access the signal via the antenna that comes with the box. We tell you whether or not you need a satellite dish at the point of purchase.

    We highly recommend you ignore the indoor antenna and install the outdoor one but you can chance it with the indoor antenna if you want. In our experience it will not pick up signal reliably in a lot of places. Instructions on how to connect the antenna are clear in the manual in the box so we won’t go into those.

    Outdoor antenna

    We will also not go into any detail about setting up the satellite dish if you are in an area that needs this. Our recommendation is that you get help from folks who already offer satellite dish installation services. If you are a DIY freak then we will only say the dish must face North West. The same general direction that the Kwese dish used to face which is different from the DStv position so yea you cannot use your dish already installed for DStv.

    Step 4: Connect the decoder to the TV

    Use the HDMI cable supplied in the box to connect to the TV. If your TV does not support HDMI, connect using the AV cables also supplied. If you don’t know what these are, look below (no assumptions):

    Step 5: Scan for channels

    Before we proceed, make sure you have switched on the decoder. Trust me, someone needs this reminder. On your TV remote press the “Input” button or it might be called “Source” on your remote. Then select HDMI if you connected with HDMI or AV if that’s what you used. Your TV screen should show the below:

    Go to where it says “DVB S2/T2” and select. Your screen should now look like the below:

    Scroll to “Terrestrial” at the bottom and select. Your screen should show the below:

    Go to “Manual Search” and select it. We prefer manual search for the reason explained below. Your screen should show the below:

    So, we like manual search because it allows you to see if there is signal to start with. As you can see in the image above, there is no signal at all. This usually means that your antenna is not set up or positioned right. Make adjustments to your antenna while you check if there is any signal. Since this is a digital signal, as long as there is signal then you are OK, don’t worry too much about the strength of the signal (either you have it or you don’t). We recommend that you get a signal strength of at least 15%.

    If you have signal, you can navigate to the correct frequency channel for your area. Please note that you will find the TV channels on two different frequency channels. So once you get the first set of channels on a particular channel frequency, navigate again to the next one so you can get the rest of them. For example, in Harare the first Frequency Channel is 618 and the second one is 682. Below are the different frequencies for the areas that have digital terrestrial signal at the moment. Remember if you are not in one of these areas, you will need a satellite dish:

    That’s it! We hope we have made it as simple as it can be. If you have challenges, you can reach out to the Techzim Customer Care team whose contacts you would have received at the time of purchasing.

  • POTRAZ says Zim has cheapest data in region, viral video says most expensive in world. Who’s the liar?

    POTRAZ says Zim has cheapest data in region, viral video says most expensive in world. Who’s the liar?

    Last week we were all bombarded by notifications from our telecom service providers: mobile networks, fixed internet folks- everyone, about price “adjustments.” Like you, I hate those notices. In Zimbabwe, the adjustments are never downward so we don’t welcome them. At all!

    As expected, all kinds of images, memes and videos went viral. Isn’t the internet beautiful? We can vent en masse! I found it interesting that all these viral items made so much noise that POTRAZ issued a press statement. They really went into it justifying why they gave the nod for tariffs to increase.

    It seems POTRAZ was particularly made unhappy by a claim made in one of the viral pieces of content that data was more expensive in Zim than anywhere else in the region, the world including war torn places! Here’s the POTRAZ Director General:

    Finally, we continue to come across posts purporting to draw evidence from a UK website, cable.co.uk, that Zimbabwe has the most expensive data tariff in the world at USD43.75 per Gigabyte (GB). We reiterate that this is not only false but misleading and malicious. As a matter of fact and contrary to that report, Zimbabwe has the lowest data tariff in the SADC region with an out of bundle tariff of ZWL14,930 which translates to USD3.21 per GB at the September 2023 official exchange rate while the SADC average is at USD4.60.

    POTRAZ Director General, Dr G.K Machengete

    So who is the liar? It’s not so simple.

    POTRAZ’s argument

    First, POTRAZ is very right in the analysis they did. Here is a snippet of the table POTRAZ published. I am excluding fixed internet information to make the table shorter for you:

    Well from the table above, one would say and I guess that’s the point being made by POTRAZ that they didn’t increase the tariff enough. Let’s take the price per megabyte of mobile data for example: in April 2023 when tariffs were last reviewed, the equivalent USD price was 1.6c but right now after the current review, the price is equivalent to 0.53c. Meaning that the new price is still 67% cheaper than it was soon after the April review.

    POTRAZ also published a comparison of prices in the region. They really went into it and used real MNO prices in these places and not just averages. Here’s the POTRAZ table:

    Well nothing much to explain here. POTRAZ’s case is simply that Zim tariffs are below regional tariffs.

    The other side

    POTRAZ is particularly tiffed by the claim that data is costing USD43.75 per GB. This comes from a brief mention of data price comparisons done by Cable, a UK price comparison site. This brief mention was in a particularly viral Tiktok video:

    Now, we will come back to the USD43.75 since this brief mention of Cable was not the only thing in the video. Let’s first talk about where the video started. It talks about the “million dollar heist” which is about a data bundle from Econet priced at above a million bucks, well if we can call our local dollar a buck. As the video makes clear, this bundle price translates to USD3.40 per GB. This is USD0.0034 per MB. According to the POTRAZ table already shared, this is below “the regional average” price of USD0.451. So far the video and POTRAZ seem to be inadvertently agreeing that Zim actually has the cheapest data in the region even after this “adjustment.”

    Now, USD43.75

    As mentioned, the thing that got POTRAZ into a knot is the mention of data in Zim costing USD43.75 per GB. Well, POTRAZ is angry for good reason here. Come on folks, if data was costing 44 bucks (real bucks), we would know! The tiktoker missed this one. I am quite sure that if he had paused a bit, he would have realised the price doesn’t make sense especially after his own math had put the million dollar heist bundle at USD3.40 per GB.

    These UK guys always publish these comparisons and every time they are wrong. We once went into why their methodology is faulty and this is why we no longer bother to publish their outrageously headlined reports when they come out. Bottom line is their methodology lacks context and it results in such bloopers: unless you’all are buying some other data I don’t know about (and am happy that way), we are not paying 44 bucks for a GB of data! With the way you’all stream from pirate sites and those other ones it would mean we are millionaires in real dollars.

    So, the video inadvertently agrees with POTRAZ (and Econet, Netone, Telecel and the rest of them) on the one part and quotes a ridiculous number from a UK website to make a claim that we pay more for internet access than war torn countries on the other part. Does this mean that the guy is a liar? Not exactly.

    Oranges, donkeys, paper clips

    This is where things get messy. So far we have been talking about the stuff POTRAZ gave us to compare. POTRAZ didn’t lie about those numbers but then again POTRAZ might not be necessarily right that Zimbabwe has the cheapest internet and whatever else in the region.

    Do you remember how your Grade 3 teacher used to tell you not to add oranges and donkeys? POTRAZ was talking about out of bundle pricing and rightly comparing those oranges to the out of bundle oranges in the region. However, neither we in Zimbabwe and they in neighboring countries experience much of out of bundle internet (this is one of the things Cable gets wrong by the way).

    Comparing bundles is not so easy though. There are a lot of combinations to bundles. Some of the variables are:

    • how long the bundle will last
    • is it for particular apps/websites (WhatsApp for example) and which ones and in what combinations
    • is it in combination with other none data services (like voice)
    • how much data
    • how much bandwidth (there is a certain WhatsApp bundle in Zim that doesn’t do WhatsApp calls- pisses me off)

    This almost makes bundle comparisons a comparison of oranges and donkeys. The best person to compare is the individual who knows exactly how they use the internet and then they place themselves through scenarios of the different bundle offers locally and regionally and then they figure out which would have the best cost/benefit trade off for them. But still, umbrella comparisons can be done. POTRAZ didn’t do such, it would be too much work honestly and POTRAZ regulates the open tariffs and not bundles per se although they do check and satisfy themselves if the bundles don’t violate the open tariff.

    I suspect bundles in the region are more promotional than here in Zim. See, in those stable economies the issue of tariffs is not as hot a topic which comes back every so often as in Zim. Here in Zim where the regulated price gets eroded by inflation from time to time, I suspect the operators don’t necessarily cook up promotional bundles to compete against each other but they mix them up in a way that allows them to make some meaningful return from their services. The motivations are very different. This is my conjecture though so take it with a grain of salt.

    So, the problem is that the viral video carelessly included a faulty statistic from the UK to an otherwise good delivery even though it agreed with POTRAZ that data is cheaper in Zim than the region. The second problem is that POTRAZ compared out of bundle pricing which is not really how we experience the internet in Zim and the region. So whether we actually experience a cheaper internet access than our friends in the region is not really answered because no one compared our actual experiences.

    Zim is even more complicated

    The biggest problem I have with this discussion so far is that we are talking about the price of telecom services in Zimbabwe based on ZWL prices. Zimbabwe’s currency is not stable so all the numbers we have been throwing around will be substantially different by tomorrow. Added to that, we have been using the official exchange rate. Who says the official exchange rate is the most accurate?

    In fact, the issue of the local currency is what distorts things. I see a bundle priced at a million and I gasp, but man, a million of what? The million dollar bundle turned out to be below the regional average. Still, seeing a million is not something I get used to. Even those days when we bought bread for billions of V1 Zim dollars, it was not something we could get used to.

    Another problem brought on by currency has kind of been highlighted by POTRAZ in their rant against social media. ZWL tariffs are changing too infrequently. So infrequently that after a 100% increase, the new prices are still less than what they were in April by a good 67%! In fact what this means is that just before the recent change the price per megabyte was 0.26c which made it cheaper than it was in April by 84%. This cannot be sustainable.

    But this is a problem you and I dear reader love. We get it all cheap and man we need it cheap man, our pockets are empty already. Issue is we get used to the cheap so much that we forget this is all a gift from the Zim economy and its distortions. When the “adjustments” come we don’t like it at all.

    Perhaps it would be better if POTRAZ approved small increases during the course of the year instead of the sudden 100% increases. The reason we scream and shout is because we just see a massive jump to a million. We don’t notice how the price of a 500g packet of beans has been increasing over the year and that it actually changed much more than the bundle. Ever heard the story of how if you put a frog in boiling water it jumps out for its dear life but if you put it in cold water and raise the temperature ever so gradually, it will not notice and be cooked to death? Story is a lie (learnt this after years of sharing the story) but the lesson is true. We jump at 100% and we get cooked to death by the 500g pack of beans.

    Infrequent increases also make the operators max out on the allowed maximum price because they don’t know when the next increase will come. If increases came frequently I guess some would choose to price below maximum knowing that the maximum price will always be moving in line with inflation and currency trends such that they can always be charging a viable tariff. As it stands all the operators price at the ceiling thinking it’s better to make some money while the ceiling tariff makes sense because who knows what it will be worth by the time POTRAZ approves another increase.

    Issue is affordability, has always been

    The real issue in Zim is not the price of data or voice or whatever. It’s not even the price of bread! The real issue is the affordability of all these things. This has little to do with the price itself or the providers of the service. It has most to do with the economy and how poor we have become over the years. We cannot afford bread not because bread is necessarily expensive but because we have no money. The video kind of acknowledges this when the guy compares the price of his selected bundle to what he called the average monthly salary in Zim. At that point I think we should have been more angry about what we are earning because no matter how low stuff is priced, if we are earning peanuts then we cannot afford period. By the way, I don’t know where he got the average salary in Zimbabwe (as informalised as we are). The real number is probably much lower than his.

    The minister of ICT weighed in on this and said she will be looking into this with POTRAZ. I am quite sure she will also see how the issue is not at the price level, it’s much deeper. Conversations like these help: they give us opportunity to look at things at a much deeper layer. The minister will probably have more to say at Cabinet about the state of the economy and such as she starts to be confronted by the real issues.

    So, is there a liar? No. Do we like the “adjustments?” No, we don’t! Are the “adjustments” understandable? WE DPON’T CARE, WE HATE THEM!

  • Old Mutual launches O’mari a mobile wallet and platform

    Old Mutual launches O’mari a mobile wallet and platform

    Recently, Old Mutual Zimbabwe launched a fintech business, Old Mutual Digital Services. On the evening of 23 May 2023, this new business launched its flagship product and brand, O’mari (pronounced oow mari as in “o mari iyi sha – receive this money, my guy“).

    What is O’mari?

    O’mari is a mobile wallet, yes mobile as in mobile money. The wallet is accessible via mobile app, WhatsApp and USSD code *707#. Subscribers can send or receive money to and from each other, they can buy airtime, and pay bills. Stuff we have come to expect from mobile wallets.

    So what is different about O’mari?

    When we first heard of the launch we were like, “Hmm yet another wallet?” The concern is always how any new such service will distinguish itself and capture people’s attention. The O’mari team seems to have thought about this and they have built in some features that are not yet out there out of the gate.

    Leveraging the insurance background of their parent, O’mari incorporates some micro-insurance services:

    FoodCare: When one subscribes for this and pays premiums which are as low as US$0.90 per month their family will get monthly groceries for between one year and five years when the subscriber dies.

    SchoolCare: This is similar to FoodCare except that when the subscriber dies their child or children will have their school fees or part of school fees paid by Old Mutual every term for between a year and five years. Premiums start at US$0.90 per month as well.

    The above two products may attract people’s attention. I think we Zimbabweans are a bit morbid. We do try to sort out our affairs and plan for the taking care of our families when we kick it. The pricing seems accessible. Of course, we will want to see the fine print before we can make an opinion on whether this is a good deal or not.

    HealthCare: This is a health benefit that comes as an add-on when you are subscribed to either of the above two products for at least four months and the benefits depend on how much you transact on the O’mari platform.

    Other O’mari features

    The platform has two wallets ZWL and USD. This is now an expected thing in Zim really. The ZWL wallet comes with a Zimswitch card and the USD wallet with a Visa card. You can pick up either card from any of the O’mari physical channel partners and then activate it on the O’mari digital channels. The team promises to add investments type stuff to the platform soon as well.

    Most important thing for mobile money

    Any mobile money service can only have a chance of success if it has a good network of agents where people can cash in and out. This is particularly true in Zim right now because mobile money has retrogressed to 2011 where it’s about the transmission of cash from one end of the country to the other above anything else.

    O’mari is starting with a solid network for cash in and out. They have partnered with OK Zimbabwe, TM Pick n Pay, SPAR, N Richards and Metro Peech. Of course, Old Mutual offices and CABS branches add to that network. This gives the service a decent initial footprint, above 130 outlets on my count.

    Will O’mari win?

    It’s still too early to call this one. What they did well was to incorporate unique features into the service. If the market is interested in these, this gives them a chance. Old Mutual is also a deep-pocketed behemoth that could use brute force to push this. Generally with digital products, this is far from a guarantee; if the product sucks, people will not care and many a company has thrown money away only to delay the inevitable.

    We will keep playing around with the service and we will be sharing more over the next few days and weeks.

    See the launch of O’Mari in pictures here.

    Also read:

    InnBucks now giving loans, here is everything you need to know about them

    EcoCash USD debit card 2.0. It does online payments now

  • Above 18% of “early adopters” using EcoCash USD wallet, much higher than we expected

    Above 18% of “early adopters” using EcoCash USD wallet, much higher than we expected

    Last month Techzim conducted a survey to determine the level and form of usage of the EcoCash USD wallet. The survey was shared mostly with the Techzim community on WhatsApp and social media as well as communities around Techzim related platforms: Pindula and Soccer 24. The response to the survey was quite high at 441 respondents.

    In general (and particularly in relation to the Techzim community) these targeted individuals are considered (ummm by us) to be early adopters. Therefore, their usage of products and services could be predictive of future acceptability of the product by the mainstream BUT in some cases these people are just extreme geeks who will try out stuff that (us) normal people will never touch with a 30 meter pole. Anyway, let’s get into the results of the survey:

    First: who are these respondents?

    The above demographics charts demonstrate that the sample was quite representative except when it comes to gender- Techzim community members please invite more ladies to our platforms, thank you! Education status and employment status shows that indeed this group is likely to be more of the early adopters. That percentage of formal employment is above the 28% of labour force reported by Zimstat for example which we can assume to be some level of privilege in the Zim context.

    How have they used EcoCash USD wallet?

    Impressive, not impressive?

    The annotations to the above charts show that Ruth, Techzim’s head of research was not impressed by the usage numbers. The title to this article shows that I disagree with Ruth. I was not expecting any sort of usage above 10% whether or not the sample consisted of early adopters and experimenters.

    18.4% of the respondents claim that they received money into their EcoCash USD wallet at least once before. I am impressed by this number and all the above numbers because I know how we Zimbabweans do not trust formal systems with our money anymore. We have had the central bank and the government change policies on us leaving us holding empty bags and them walking away with our savings several times in just over 10 years. I thought the resounding response to EcoCash USD (yes I know they call it FCA) would be ‘no thank you.’

    The sender dictates

    The survey shows that the most common transaction is receiving money into the wallet. The other transactions are quite similar in frequency but just below the receiving one. I think this shows that the USD wallet is probably being funded through the choice of people who send money especially those in the diaspora (our survey didn’t explicitly ask where the money was sent from) without perhaps asking the recipients how they would want to receive the money.

    My wife has an uncle in the UK who sends money to her parents from time to time. He sends the money to her for onward delivery to the parents. No matter how many times we tell this uncle to use service A or B to do this because it would be more convenient for my wife, he keeps using service C! At some point we threatened that we would not help him anymore with his transactions but he called our bluff and continued to send through service C. Whoever sends the money calls the shots!

    Why do they use the Ecocash USD wallet?

    Quite surprised by the prevalence of the word affordable when our respondents were asked what they liked about EcoCash USD wallet. The government’s 4% tax has made this service and any other formal service quite pricey. Is it that the informal channels cost even more?

    Now the flip side- what sucks about the wallet?

    Contradictions, contradictions: now, the most important impediment seems to be fees. Unsurprisingly issues to do with government policy inconsistency and how the formal system is more dangerous than the mattress weigh down on how far people will adopt the EcoCash USD wallet. The curtailing of the EcoCash agent network is obviously a big deal in limiting the usefulness of EcoCash in general and the results show there- this is the government again. Customer support and other service issues given above are solely on EcoCash and they should be wise to pay attention to the expressed sentiment.

    So, what?

    EcoCash and other formal players like Innbucks still have a chance as the economy dollarises. Convincing these more tech and finance savvy folks to use their service at this level in so short a time is an impressive feat in my view. They just have to figure out why exactly these people are using the service and work on the reasons given for disliking the service given above and they could again get mainstream adoption.

  • Buying $1 airtime? At least 40c is going to gvt

    Buying $1 airtime? At least 40c is going to gvt

    We have always known that telecom consumers in Zimbabwe are heavily burdened with taxes, levies and fees but still when I was going through Econet’s latest financial report this paragraph jumped at me:

    The Postal Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (“POTRAZ”) installed a system on our sites which, according to the TTMS regulations (SI 95 of 2021), is aimed at combating network fraud and addressing billing integrity issues. The system attracts an additional tax of US 6 cents per minute on international incoming traffic, payable in foreign currency. This increases the taxes that are levied on the telecommunications sector, specifically. The industry is currently subject to 10% excise duties on revenue. This is over and above the 14.5% VAT as well as other regulatory levies and taxes of 3.5%, bringing the total taxes on each dollar of revenue to approximately to 28%. These taxes are prior to the allocation of any operating costs applied in the determination of the Company’s liability for income taxes. These taxes are generally higher than the African average and have the impact of increasing the connectivity costs for consumers.

    Dr J Myers, Board Chairman for Econet Wireless Zimbabwe

    A lot more is going to the government

    This is just too excessive hey, paying 28c of every dollar we spend on airtime to the government before we factor in the bottomline tax is just incredible. A list of other money we pay to the government with every $1 purchase of airtime besides this 28c:

    • Income tax that the operator pays from its profits: this gets to be factored into what we pay. Corporate income tax in Zimbabwe is currently 24.72%. Using the historical presentation of financials for Econet for the year ended February 2022, we pay to the government a further 10.3c per dollar of airtime we buy. This raises what goes to the government per dollar of airtime we buy to 38c.
    • License fees that the operators pay and of course they pass on this fee to us. Currently the license fee is USD137.5 million for 20 years. The other fees paid for the license per year have been obviously included in the Chairman’s report I quoted above. It is difficult for me to breakdown the USD137.5 million into cents per dollar of airtime we buy because 20 years is too long a timeframe and without access to the operators’ economic models I cannot do a good job at this. Added to that, the deterioration of Zim currency means this fee has to chew more into per unit service rendered. Here’s a great article to check out if you are curious about license fees.
    • International callers of course pay USD0.06 mentioned above for every minute of every call they make. This fee may sip into what we pay locally as well as the operators try to recover loss of that USD0.06 per minute from their international revenue.

    I think it’s safe to say a minimum of 40c is going to the government for every dollar of airtime we buy.

    Data must fall? Know who to ask for it

    Calculating from the Econet financials, 23.5c of every dollar of airtime we buy goes into direct network and technology operating costs and 9c goes to staff costs. That leaves them with 27c on the dollar for other expenses and then to be left with a profit. I expect these ratios to be worse for the other operators because of their economies of scale disadvantage.

    Looks to me as if, our call for data prices to fall and all the rest should go more to the government than to the operators. The government gets the lion’s share of every dollar we spend on airtime without taking any risk or adding any value. I haven’t even included the government’s indirect contribution to cost by failing to manage the economy well such that the operators have to run their networks on diesel and incur massive exchange rate losses as the Zimbabwe Dollar tumbles in value. Exchange losses alone were 6c for every dollar of revenue (and that’s using the official forex rate).

    Finally: a shameless plug

    Reminder that people in the diaspora can buy airtime for loved ones back home right here on Techzim. As you do so, you support the work we are doing and you keep the lights on- thank you. Don’t overthink it too hey, you don’t have to spend much: a dollar or couple of dollars will give someone in Zimbabwe tons of airtime.

    Diaspora: buy Zimbabwe airtime here

  • Data and calling prices go up – diaspora please come in

    Data and calling prices go up – diaspora please come in

    Yesterday (13th July), Econet increased their prices across the board for none bundled stuff and tomorrow Netone is doing the same and of course Telecel will do too. This is because the regulator, POTRAZ has raised the ceiling for these tariffs. Word on the streets is that we should expect another upward revision in August. By the way, bundles will be adjusted soon by all the operators and oh- Liquid (formerly ZOL) and Telone already increased their fees.

    The above is a really hard paragraph to digest. It’s too long and it is full of bad news for you and I who reside in this house of stone, Zimbabwe. These services that have become so necessary to almost all aspects of our functioning are slipping out of our reach even further but….

    These services are still too cheap

    The last time POTRAZ approved changes to the headline tariffs (actual tariffs not bundles) was in August 2020 just after the introduction of the forex auction by the RBZ. The official exchange rate between the USD and the Zim Dollar was 1:85 and today the official interbank rate is 1:394. In August 2020 the parallel exchange rate was 1:100 and today some folks on the street say it’s 1:780

    What this means is that the value of our local money is now 4.63 times weaker according to the officials and 7.8 times weaker according to the streets since the last tariff adjustment. So, if the telecom operators aimed to get the same value they got from their services in August 2020 they should have been allowed to increase their prices by 5 times or 8 times depending on which market reflects real value.

    However, the increase that has come at least for voice calls is a 60% jump, that is a 0.6 times increase. In effect therefore the operators even after their price increase will be earning far less per unit than they were earning two years ago. In hard numbers, after the price increase they will be earning 8 times less per unit if we use the official exchange rate or 13 times less if using the other one. That’s some crazy decimation of value. But still…

    We cannot afford

    The above is the economics at the operator end of things. The economics of our pockets is way more miserable. To use the earning situation of a random civil servant who was willing to share their financials: in August 2020 they were earning around USD320 if we converted their earnings at the official rate or about USD270 if converted at the parallel rate.

    Calculating what this person will earn at the end of the month when the government effects the 100% in their Zim Dollar salary and then adding the USD100 component of the salary and the USD75 COVID allowance: our person will earn about USD340 at the official rate if the rate doesn’t change or USD257 using the street rate, assuming again that it doesn’t change before the end of the month.

    By and large we are earning less and even though the telcos are getting less value per unit from us, we are less able to afford their services. That is the conundrum of this economic mess we live in.

    SOS to the diaspora

    You see, although the first paragraph of this article sounded as if data and calling have become so expensive, in real terms they have not. It’s just that for a great many people in Zimbabwe, no mater how cheap the services are, they just can’t afford them. This is where the diaspora comes in: A dollar worth of airtime is still quite a lot and goes a long way in placing a smile on people’s face back home.

    We at Techzim recently introduced a service that allows folks in the diaspora to buy airtime for people back home. So far your response has been very encouraging, thank you. This price increase is just another reminder to all our friends in the diaspora that you can make a difference with not so much money. Of course, as you utilise our service you also support us- we are grateful.

    Here’s where to buy Zimbabwe airtime from the diaspora.

  • Hey diaspora, you can now send airtime to Zim via Techzim – check it out

    Hey diaspora, you can now send airtime to Zim via Techzim – check it out

    Little things make a huge difference sometimes. Us (the foolish ones) who stayed in Zimbabwe when others left, we know this to be truth. A ten dollar note sent by a relative in the diaspora can mean salvation from several days of going to bed on an empty tummy. Those in the diaspora understand this quite well, that’s why for the past 3 years remittances into Zim have been increasing year on year to record highs every year.

    A single dollar can make a difference too. It can buy tons of airtime for people back home. Techzim (us) has made it easier than ever to spread a much needed smile by sending airtime to loved ones in Zimbabwe. As you perform this kind gesture you also support Techzim and the work we do so yea please go ahead and do the good deed:

    Here’s where to send airtime to Zimbabwe via Techzim.

  • Innbucks’ growth shows OneMoney could miss yet another opportunity

    Innbucks’ growth shows OneMoney could miss yet another opportunity

    Why not write yet another article about Innbucks? The Simbisa Brands owned ‘wallet’ service which has been suspended by the central bank had achieved an incredible run. They came out of nowhere and their run in such a short time is way more inspiring than Zimbabwe’s second most popular mobile money service by number of subscribers: OneMoney.

    Simbisa Brands has not shared any specific numbers on usage. In its half year report up to December 2021 Simbisa had only this to say about Innbucks:

    The group established a new business, Innbucks, in partnership with a local fintech investor. Innbucks is a mobile application which allows customers to send, receive money and buy food at Simbisa outlets. Currently the service is available in the group’s largest market, Zimbabwe. The service has been well received in the market.

    Google Playstore says the Innbucks mobile app has been downloaded more than 50 thousand times. This is more than any bank application in Zimbabwe except for the CBZ Touch app which has been downloaded more than 100 thousand times. OneMoney? The OneMoney app is nowhere near Innbucks, it has been downloaded more than 5 thousand times. Of course this doesn’t mean OneMoney has less subscribers than Innbucks or less active subscribers than Innbucks.

    3 weeks ago, Techzim conducted a survey to get an idea of domestic remittance services people were using to send money to each other. The survey was distributed via WhatsApp and more than 1500 people responded. 21.3% of survey respondents mentioned that they had used Innbucks to send money while 6.8% mentioned having used OneMoney. This was an open ended question where people would list services themselves without being prompted.

    The first 2 big opportunities wasted by OneMoney

    To understand the opportunity that exists and seemingly being squandered by Netone’s OneMoney while being exploited by Innbucks, let’s first discuss the most important opportunities to fall on mobile money operators and yet not fully exploited by OneMoney over the years:

    The first opportunity was of course at introduction of mobile money in Zimbabwe. OneMoney was introduced into the market before EcoCash but EcoCash beat them in a very short space of time. This is an interesting tale that we did a case study report on 4 years ago and we will not go into it. The thing to note is that this greenfield opportunity was wasted by Netone and EcoCash won resoundingly.

    2015 to 2016 brought the second huge opportunity for OneMoney to gain some significant share of the market. At this time, Zimbabwe was transitioning to a literally cashless economy. Cash was hard to come by but people still needed to transact. With the proliferation of mobile phones, mobile money was the obvious form of money to take over from cash for day to day transactions.

    The ideal scenario at this time for OneMoney would have been at least converting all NetOne subscribers to become OneMoney wallet users who would use it to transact while Econet converted its subscribers to use the EcoCash wallet. However, this is not what happened. What happened is that a lot of NetOne subscribers bought secondary Econet SIM cards just so they could have EcoCash.

    Why did it happen this way? EcoCash invested in getting a lot of merchants on board meaning that if you had EcoCash you could walk into a store and use it to buy stuff. NetOne had no vision or imagination and was going through crazy boardroom coups. Opportunity squandered. In absolute numbers 2015 to 2016 is the period when EcoCash gained the most subscribers. Transitions matter.

    Mobile money is coming full circle

    The reverse of what happened between 2015 and 2016 is happening. No matter what Zimbabwe’s minister of finance and his central bank governor tell you, this country is re-dollarising at double speed and in the process moving from cashless transactions to cash.

    The 2015-2016 transition transformed mobile money from being predominantly remittance services for people to send money to and from each other across the breadth of the country. Mobile money became a means for paying for goods and services first and foremost and sadly for OneMoney, EcoCash was way more prepared for this change.

    Now, the collapse of the Zim dollar is throwing us into a transition from cashless transactions to cash being king again. When people send money to each other or lend to each other they want their transactions to be in US dollars which they can trust to hold its value and not local currency. Once again, mobile money is needed to be a remittance service.

    OneMoney clearly identified this trend and they introduced a USD domestic remittance service ahead of EcoCash. This is the time for them to fight hard and take advantage of the transition otherwise history will repeat itself. Innbucks’ popularity out of nowhere proves that this opportunity exists.

    What matters most

    Why did Innbucks become popular? It’s the network, Stupid! Simbisa reports that as at 31 December 2021, they had 239 outlets across the country. That is their super power. When you randomly ask a person who uses Innbucks as a remittance service why they do so they will most probably tell you that it’s super easy for them to access their money because of that network.

    If OneMoney want to take back share from EcoCash, they need to make a plan about increasing their footprint and they should do it quick. Right now they still have a chance because EcoCash is only offering cash in and out services at Econet shops. Their superior agent network is still sleeping most likely because the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is nervous about allowing those agents back online after banning them for facilitating parallel market foreign currency dealings.

    NetOne has to use its advantage as a government owned entity to increase their agent network in a way that doesn’t spook the central bank. They should use government service centres dotted across the country as cash in and out points. In fact I don’t have much faith in Zimpost’s attempts at remittances; if only NetOne could convince Zimpost to partner OneMoney instead of trying to go at it alone or whatever it is they are doing. Heck, if it doesn’t go against the country’s constitution or something, I would use ZRP police stations as cash points if I were OneMoney!

    That’s the mentality that’s needed to win. Can OneMoney pull it outta the bag? Pakaipa.

  • Zim economy an electric fire- pouring water makes things worse, Sorry Mangudya

    Zim economy an electric fire- pouring water makes things worse, Sorry Mangudya

    The biggest issue I have with all the economic theories, principles and rules I know is that they start with the qualifier, “All things being equal.” All things are never equal more so in this beloved country we call Zimbabwe.

    I felt sorry for the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as I was going through his recently issued monetary policy statement. He is battling with a serious case of zero things being equal and therefore even the most logical things he proposes become illogical just by being proposed in and for Zimbabwe at this time.

    The sense I get from the governor’s statement is that he is still viewing the fire that is the Zimbabwe economy as a ferocious but ordinary wild veld fire. Such a fire can be put out by dumping loads of water on it no problem.

    An electrical fire is another story however, If you spray water on it, it may cause a short circuit (water conducts electricity) making the fire worse and may even electrocute people around especially the person doing the spraying. The Zimbabwean economy is exactly like that, it will not respond to the regular tools of the trade, not in the way desired, it will get worse instead.

    The water Mangudya is spraying

    His logic of the evil of dollarisation

    Dr Mangudya in his statement correctly explains how dollarisation was damaging to the economy right from the beginning in 2009. Please forgive the large excerpt below but it’s super important:

    The past experience of the country is quite instructive that promotion of use of local currency is beneficial. In 2009 the country legislated a fixed exchange rate under the auspices of dollarisation. Electronic or virtual currency was commingling with physical foreign currency and the two were at par. With hindsight, what was supposed to have been done then was to allow the local currency to be part of the basket of currencies as evidence on the ground shows that the country did not have sufficient foreign exchange liquidity to meet its foreign currency commitments even under dollarisation.

    Legislation of a fixed exchange rate, as was the case in 2009 when the US$ was introduced as the currency of transaction, is not ideal for any economy as it renders the economy uncompetitive and a supermarket economy and gives the wrong impression that foreign currency is a domestic currency which is earned without exporting.

    Foreign currency needs to be earned from foreign sources such as exports and remittances and competitiveness of local production becomes very essential to promote exports, and stability of the local currency is key to promote investment and for value preservation.

    Dr John Mangudya Monetary Policy Statement Feb 2022

    The governor is quite right in this logic and he uses it to explain why we should continue ‘using’ the Zim dollar. What he forgets though or neglects to consider is that we are ‘hardly using’ the Zim dollar. Our landlords and landladies are demanding US dollars and so is the smiling young lady at the vegetable musika.

    We are being forced to source US dollars if we want to eat vegetables and go to sleep with a roof over our heads. How do we source the forex? We demand USD for whatever little wares we sell to our friends and families as a side hustle or we beg our not so favourite aunties and uncles in the diaspora to send us a buck or two.

    The reason all this is happening is because our landlord and the smiling girl and indeed all of us just cannot trust the local currency. The government itself cannot trust the currency Mangudya issues, it demands USD120.00 from you and I to get the new e-passport. Zvakawoma veduwe. That lack of trust is what dooms the Zim dollar no mater what the good governor does even when it is backed by good economic logic as he expounded in the excerpt above.

    What the governor forgets is that in 2009 the government did not demonetise the local currency, it merely officialised the demonetisation of the local currency. Citizens demonetised the local currency in 2008, they just started rejecting it. I almost lost a limb back then when I had the nerve to attempt to pay ZW$10 trillion for the lift I had just been given at the back of an open truck. Zvakawoma kani.

    Those 2008 forces are still at play here and they make Mangudya’s logic illogical.

    Fuel in local currency

    This is just a bad idea. Here is Dr John:

    The Bank is therefore putting in place the following additional measures to support and promote the use of the local currency in the country:
    a) Increasing foreign exchange availability to fuel service stations designated by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) to sell fuel in local currency.

    This move just creates arbitrage opportunities. Folks who don’t even own cars will queue up for the ZWL fuel and then turn around and sell it for USD. Easiest money ever made. Vanhu ava havadzidze vakaita sei: in the same statement the RBZ has all but scrapped off the USD50 at auction rate per week facility because of arbitrage.

    After dishing out USD23 million under this facility they discovered some folks had made it a business to queue for the 50 and then turn around and sell it on the parallel market. For some reason the economists at the central bank think it will be different with fuel. Kungoda kutiwona tiri muma queue chete.

    Revised limits on transactions

    This is a good thing but not for the reasons the governor gives. Here’s what he says:

    d) Increasing the limit on mobile banking transactions as follows: –
    a. Person to business from ZW$20 000 to ZW$25 000 per transaction with a maximum limit of ZW$100 000 per week; and
    b. Person to person from ZW$5 000 to ZW$10 000 per transaction with a limit of ZW$70 000 per week

    f) Increasing the cash withdrawal limit for the banking public from ZW$2000
    to ZW$5000 per week.

    This is a good thing because limits on transactions are annoying. Any kind of relaxation is welcome and convenient. However, Mangudya is relaxing the limits in order to encourage the use of local currency and thus to kill the forex black market. Water to an electric fire, this will not only not work but it will also make the black market go crazy worse.

    What the relaxed limits will do is that they will add more local currency accessibility on the streets. In general terms the Zim dollar that the public gets access to is only useful for one thing, it is only used to buy one thing: the US dollar! So if people get more of the Zim dollar then they are going to compete more fiercely for the USD on the parallel market and the rate will go bonkus. Electrocution.

    The electric to the fire

    The problem that makes zero things equal in this economy is the zero trust people have in the government and the money it issues. This is for a good reason too, people have been robbed and have had their savings wiped several times over the years as policy shifts happened overnight. Until the problem of trust is solved then water will not work on this fire. Dr Mangudya may need to look outside the regular toolbox for this one, it’s an electric fire.

  • Some taxes payable in USD now payable in ZWL – Good idea that won’t work

    Some taxes payable in USD now payable in ZWL – Good idea that won’t work

    Finally the Zimbabwean government, the Minister of Finance Mthuli Ncube particularly acknowledges its double standards (somewhat). The minister has shared a document on Twitter titled, “Measures being instituted by government to enhance the domestic use of the Zimbabwe dollar.”

    The important bit goes so:

    a. All mining royalties are now payable in Zimbabwe Dollars up to a limit of 50% of royalties due.

    b. All duties and taxes on the importation of designated motor vehicles are now payable in Zimbabwe dollars again up to a limit of 50% of duties and taxes payable.

    C. All domestic taxes due from exporters on their export receipts are now payable in both foreign and local currency in direct proportion to the approved export retention levels. As an example, an exporter who receives foreign currency of say USD1 000.00 at a 40% surrender ratio (60% retention) will pay taxes on the 40% in Zimbabwe dollars and the 60% in foreign currency.

    These measures reflect Government’s commitment to promote the wider use of the Zimbabwe Dollar and to continuously strengthen the economy so as to build long-lasting macro-economic stability.

    What problem are they trying to solve by the way?

    Well, the Zimbabwean Dollar has been falling at an unbelievable pace. The major underlying reason why this has been happening is that no one really wants the currency. Zimbabweans don’t believe this currency is a good store of value which in itself is a self fulfilling prophecy.

    Once people believe that, they will reject the currency and want to convert it to one that they trust. By doing that, they are willing to purchase the more stable currency (the USD) at whatever cost meaning the value of the Zim dollar goes down as more and more people and businesses compete to get the USD.

    When people and businesses observe that loss of value they are moved to mistrust the local currency more and they double their efforts in trying to get rid of it which devalues the currency even further and the circle keeps going in that fashion. The situation gets worse with every turn of the circle. If Mthuli Ncube and John Mangudya would speak honestly they would tell you this is where we find ourselves as a country.

    Why are Mthuli’s measures a good idea?

    The government itself was part of the bandwagon that has been refusing the Zim dollar even while they tell the rest of us to use it. A lot of taxes and fees are only payable in foreign currency. Now, if I can’t even pay the government in its own issued currency why should I expect anyone else to accept it?

    What has been happening therefore is that there has been less and less usage of the Zim dollar. The average person probably only uses local currency when buying airtime and paying ZESA otherwise nearly everything else is priced in USD. To be honest even for airtime and ZESA some traders are selling in USD besides Techzim and others of course.

    By demanding that taxes be paid in local currency the government may stabilise things by creating a use for the currency. Just like people keep a bit of their money in local currency in order to buy ZESA on Techzim, businesses and individuals affected by the taxes listed above will keep a bit more in order to meet their obligations to the government. This will increase the demand of the local currency and therefore reverse the downward spiral; at least that’s the hope.

    Why will it not work?

    These efforts will probably not work because we are too far down the tubes now. Damage has already been done. Public perception on local money is already hostile and it will not change just like that. In fact, the public is justified in not trusting any money issued by the Zimbabwean government because the government has robbed people countless times through monetary policy.

    Second reason this will not work is because this is a half measure. Not all the previously USD payable taxes are now payable in ZWL. Ncube’s statement talks of 50% here, 60% there and such. There are other fees that are still wholly payable in USD only for example fees for the new e-passports. The government is therefore still rejecting its own currency and why should people not do the same?

  • Apology to Telecel

    Earlier today Techzim (us) published a completely false story to the effect that Telecel Zimbabwe was shutting down. This was gross negligence on our part and totally unacceptable.

    We are unreservedly apologising to Telecel for this and for the confusion and harm it may have caused to them, their brand and their business. To apologise and then in the same breath attempt to explain what happened would be insincere. There is no excuse for missing the mark like this and we would rather stick to presenting ourselves hat in hand and just say sorry.

    In my personal capacity and on behalf of Techzim I extend sincere apologies to The Telecel board, their CEO, Ms Angeline Vere, leadership, employees, subscribers and all their stakeholders including of course their shareholders. We are truly sorry.

    To our readers: very sorry about this. We will do better.

    Sincerely

    Tinashe T. Nyahasha
    Techzim CEO

  • Shoprite stores SA appoints Econet subsidiary to install solar

    Shoprite stores SA appoints Econet subsidiary to install solar

    Some months ago, the Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa expressed his view that DPA, a subsidiary of the Econet group would grow to be bigger than its other sister companies notably Liquid and Econet Wireless (the telco). Looks like DPA (Distributed Power Africa) is energised to do exactly that.

    Deal with Shoprite

    The solar company has won the bid to install solar at three Shoprite stores in South Africa. Yes this is just 3 stores and there are other vendors that are installing solar in other Shoprite locations but this is an important foot in the door.

    Shoprite is the largest retailer on the African continent. There is definitely more work from the retail giant given that they launched a whole initiative to ‘go green.’ The three locations are therefore an opportunity for DPA to prove itself and perhaps be awarded other stores and locations.

    The 3 locations are Lichtenburg (North West Province), Malelane (Mpumalanga Province) and Waverly (Gauteng province).

    DPA has been scoring

    This is definitely not DPA’s first rodeo. They have been winning contracts with some of the largest businesses on the continent such as Total, the large energy multinational, Anglo American Corporation and Ecobank, the pan African banking group.

    It is possible

    Masiyiwa’s optimism for the company is probably founded on the fact that solar and renewable energy in general has become the in thing across the world. This is probably going to get even bigger after the recent report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report painted a very gloom picture and will probably result in a more rapid push to replace carbon sources of energy with renewables.

    Before this report, the global solar industry was already expected to be worth more than USD223 billion by 2026. If DPA proves itself and plays its cards right it could get a lucrative slice of that pie.

  • EcoCash tariffs going up in a few weeks, up to 25% increase

    EcoCash tariffs going up in a few weeks, up to 25% increase

    EcoCash, the operators of Zimbabwe’s largest mobile payments service of the same name has announced that they are increasing their tariffs effective the 21st of September 2021.

    EcoCash effected higher changes to their pricing for higher transaction amounts. The biggest jump is the 25% increase in the fees for paying $1 000 to $1 499. Fees for very small transactions are largely staying the same which must be very transactions anyway given how much our local currency has deteriorated in value. Transactions of $3 000 and above which currently attract a fixed percentage fee are retaining the same fixed percentage fees as well.

    The tables below show the comparison between the current tariffs and the new ones coming in Septemeber:

    UPDATE: Initially we reported much higher changes because we were using the tariffs that were displayed on the EcoCash website at the time of publishing. However, we have been informed that the tariffs that were so displayed were outdated by several months. We have corrected the figures accordingly.

    Tariffs for paying merchants

    Transaction ValueOld tariffNew tariff% Increase
    $1.00 to $9.99$0.89$0.934.5%
    $10.00 to $19.99$1.45$1.524.8%
    $20.00 to $29.99$2.06$2.164.9%
    $300.00 to $39.99$3.17$3.479.5%
    $40.00 to $49.99$4.19$4.190.0%
    $50.00 to $74.99$5.69$5.690.0%
    $75.00 to $99.99$7.53$7.530.0%
    $100.00 to $149.99$7.61$8.9117.1%
    $150.00 to $199.99$9.21$11.0019.4%
    $200.00 to $299.99$10.41$12.4419.5%
    $300.00 to $499.99$10.86$13.0320.0%
    $500.00 to $999.99$33.79$42.1724.8%
    $1 000.00 to $1 499.99$49.41$61.6625.0%
    $1 500.00 to $1 999.99$70.72$84.8620.0%
    $2 000.00 to $2 499.99$87.30$104.7620.0%
    $2 500.00 to $2 299.99$103.43$124.1220.0%
    $3 000.00 to $5 000.001.85%1.85%0.0%
    These are just the EcoCash fees. From $300 onwards, consumers are taxed 2% of the transacted amount which adds to the overall cost of the transaction

    Tariffs for sending money to other EcoCash users

    Transaction ValueOld tariffNew tariff% Increase
    $1.00 to $9.99$0.68$0.725.9%
    $10.00 to $19.99$1.42$1.494.9%
    $20.00 to $29.99$2.10$2.204.8%
    $300.00 to $39.99$2.63$2.889.5%
    $40.00 to $49.99$3.93$3.930.0%
    $50.00 to $74.99$5.31$5.310.0%
    $75.00 to $99.99$5.89$5.8915.0%
    $100.00 to $149.99$8.01$9.3817.1%
    $150.00 to $199.99$11.06$13.2219.5%
    $200.00 to $299.99$13.52$16.1619.5%
    $300.00 to $499.99$17.87$21.4420.0%
    $500.00 to $999.99$34.43$42.9624.8%
    $1 000.00 to $1 499.99$52.31$65.2924.8%
    $1 500.00 to $1 999.99$73.48$88.1820.0%
    $2 000.00 to $2 499.99$91.85$110.2220.0%
    $2 500.00 to $2 299.99$110.21$132.2520.0%
    $3 000.00 to $5 000.001.91%1.91%0.0%
    These are just the EcoCash fees. From $300 onwards, consumers are taxed 2% of the transacted amount which adds to the overall cost of the transaction

    Tariffs for bill payments

    Transaction ValueOld tariffNew tariff% Increase
    $1.00 to $9.99$1.03$1.084.9%
    $10.00 to $19.99$1.44$1.514.9%
    $20.00 to $29.99$1.76$1.855.1%
    $300.00 to $39.99$2.46$2.699.3%
    $40.00 to $49.99$3.37$3.370.0%
    $50.00 to $74.99$4.68$4.680.0%
    $75.00 to $99.99$6.17$6.170.0%
    $100.00 to $149.99$7.76$9.0016.0%
    $150.00 to $199.99$8.57$10.2519.6%
    $200.00 to $299.99$9.75$11.6519.5%
    $300.00 to $499.99$15.31$18.3720.0%
    $500.00 to $999.99$31.25$39.0024.8%
    $1 000.00 to $1 499.99$46.88$58.5024.8%
    $1 500.00 to $1 999.99$65.00$78.0020.0%
    $2 000.00 to $2 499.99$81.25$97.5020.0%
    $2 500.00 to $2 299.99$97.50$117.0020.0%
    $3 000.00 to $5 000.001.85%1.85%0.0%
    These are just the EcoCash fees. From $300 onwards, consumers are taxed 2% of the transacted amount which adds to the overall cost of the transaction

  • More pressure for DStv, Disney+ is coming to SA

    More pressure for DStv, Disney+ is coming to SA

    In last week’s Quarter 3 earnings call, Bob Chapek, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company said that his company’s streaming service will be launching in South Africa next year. Sadly for Zimbabweans, he said South Africa might be the only African country to initially get the service. Has that ever stopped us though?

    The strength of Disney

    Disney+ is a compelling service because of the breadth and depth of entertainment intellectual property that Disney has. Disney owns Marvel, the creative studio that produces some of the most popular super hero content out there. A few weeks ago, the newest movie in the Marvel cinematic universe, Black Widow was released on Disney+ and it earned more than US$60 million in its opening weekend on the streaming platform.

    Other popular intellectual property assets owned by Disney include Star Wars and the animation studio Pixar. All these offer some of the most compelling entertainment in the world and here in Africa we are very familiar and big fans of the buckets of stories Disney tells. A lot of the movie franchises and their TV series spin offs will be exclusively available on Disney+.

    DStv in trouble

    Since the coming of Netflix to South Africa in 2016, things have been sketchy for Multichoice. The growth of subscribers for the more profitable DStv Premium and Compact+ slowed down and from 2018, the number of subscribers for these packages began to shrink. Last year Premium and Compact+ subscribers declined by 8%.

    The launch of Disney+ next year will definitely make things worse for Multichoice.

    DStv will not die just yet

    An obituary for DStv cannot be written just yet. First, access to fast and reliable internet is not yet as wide spread in Africa (even South Africa) as it is in North America for example. This limits the reach of streaming services. Of course people who have access to reliable internet are most likely the same folks who could afford the more profitable bouquets in the first place so Multichoice’s margins will continue to be threatened.

    The biggest strength that Multichoice still has though is live sports. They hold the rights to the most popular sporting events particularly the English Premier League. If you are a big fan of the EPL and you live in Africa then DStv’s Supersport is basically your only legitimate option.

    Traditional linear television is dying a painful death and generally live events especially sports are what’s keeping it alive the world over. In the same way Supersport really is DStv’s lifeline. This will continue to be the case for a long time because sports broadcasting rights are flipping expensive!

    Showmax?

    Multichoice of course has its own answer to the Netflixes of this world and its name is Showmax. According to some 2018 survey, Showmax was more popular than Netflix in South Africa. Perhaps because of Multichoice’s investment in local content. If they continue with such investment in all the territories Showmax is offered they may as well really come out as the winners in Africa’s streaming battles.

    A good decision made by DStv was also to make the English Premier League and other sporting events available on Showmax. Let’s not count DStv out just yet…

  • Zero data costs for Stanbic bank platforms, zero rating first

    Zero data costs for Stanbic bank platforms, zero rating first

    Stanbic Bank has today announced that their customers who use Econet to access internet services will not be charged to access the bank’s mobile app and other platforms. The services are now zero rated on the Econet network.

    The bank will be paying for the connectivity costs associated with usage of their platforms. Stanbic Bank Head of Personal and Business Banking, Patson Mahatchi said

    Customer centricity is of utmost importance to our business and in keeping with this key pillar, we have seen it fit to ensure that our customers are able to access essential services on our digital banking platforms at no data costs. Therefore, we now subsidize the internet service

    Mahachi says that Stanbic is in the process of negotiating with NetOne and Telecel to extend the same zero rating to its customers on those networks.

    Which platforms?

    The zero rated platforms are:

    • Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe website,
    • Stanbic App,
    • Online Banking and the
    • SlydePay app.

    A chance for SlydePay

    The SlydePay app is the app that Stanbic launched back in July for merchant payments using QR codes. At the time we expressed pessimism for its adoption. One of the reasons was that the app required connectivity to the internet for it to work. This development solves that problem.

    There are still some hurdles to go over of course but it’s good to see Stanbic working to make things smoother for the adoption of their app.

    Finally MNO’s and banks

    Several times we have and a lot of other people have asked why we have not seen local banks pick up the tab for the data their customers use to access their online services. Our bet is that the network operators were not too keen to negotiate because MNO’s tend to think that their role is always to say ‘no.’

    Will the floodgates now open?

    Does this development mean other banks will also be allowed to pay for their customers’ data usage? We definitely know that local banks trip over themselves copying each other so the demand side is obvious.

    Can Econet still say no? How can they? They can’t be seen to play favourites and besides this is probably some good little bit of revenue that they were probably never going to get because very few people in Zimbabwe connect to the non WhatsApp internet.

    Econet and the other operators to follow are probably charging much more than the users of these platforms can ever consume. How much data could you spend on a banking app?

    Will we see non banks also being allowed to strike similar deals? We hope so! Techzim has always wanted to pay for its customers’ data consumption on its properties as I am sure a number of other businesses. (Don’t read this as a promise)

    Net neutrality?

    Some people will object to this on the grounds of net neutrality. The fact of the matter though is that the net is not neutral in this country as long as there is a thing called the WhatsApp bundle. WhatsApp has foreclosed the development of meaningful internet businesses and business models through the special access packages offered by MNO’s at the exclusion of the broader internet.

    In my book, businesses paying for their customers’ access is probably the form of internet growth that Zimbabwe can afford for now. Network operators probably see this now and they will want to milk the opportunity. Things are different in Africa my friend….

  • Victoria Falls Stock Exchange launching on Friday, Old Mutual will list there

    Victoria Falls Stock Exchange launching on Friday, Old Mutual will list there

    So the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, the one the government said was for companies to raise foreign currency capital is being officially launched this coming Friday. Its doors will open next week Monday.

    What we found to be interesting is that dual listed counters (you know those companies that are listed on the Zimbabwe Stocks Exchange as well as at other stock echange(s) in other countries are likely to be the first to list. A case in point is Old Mutual which was suspended from being traded on the ZSE is one of the first companies listed on the new exchange.

    The Ministry of finance says:

    Companies likely to list on Victoria Falls Stock Exchange in the near term include Seedco, Old Mutual and PPC. Canadian miner Caledonia Mining is evaluating a possible listing, as is Geo Associates, the local partner of Australian firm Invictus Energy

    Here is the official press release:

  • Both USD and ZWL at some Standard Chartered ATMs

    Both USD and ZWL at some Standard Chartered ATMs

    OK, the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe somehow still insist that Zimbabwe ‘has de-dollarised.’ They say the fact that you can pay for stuff in USD and that shops are required to list prices in USD alongside local currency is actually part of de-dollarisation. We don’t know what that’s about especially now with what Standard Charted Bank Zimbabwe is saying.

    USD cash at ATMs

    According to communication to customers from the bank’s Head of Retail Banking, Lucas Chirume, selected Standard Chartered Bank ATMs will dispense both local currency and United States Dollar notes. He of course adds that this is subject to availability of cash.

    Here’s where to locate Standard Chartered Bank ATMs.

    More USD than Zim Dollar

    Interestingly, the withdrawal limit for USD is USD1 000 per day while limit for local currency withdrawal is ZW$1 000 per week!

    This means you can withdraw up to USD7 000 per week but only ZW$1 000 which is equivalent to about USD10 or slightly more depending on the rate you use.

    This is quite odd. I suppose this artificial scarcity of the local currency is what’s maintaining some semblance of stability of the currency in the past few weeks. The hope is that if hard currency cash starts to be perceived to be readily available it will ease people’s tendency to hoard it. Our need to hoard cash makes the exchange rate situation volatile.

  • The internet in Zimbabwe can still be shut down (probably will), the court ruling that outlawed it last time wasn’t enough

    The internet in Zimbabwe can still be shut down (probably will), the court ruling that outlawed it last time wasn’t enough

    Zimbabwe is or maybe not at the brink of yet another massive demonstration by the citizens against the government.

    When this demonstration planned for tomorrow the 31st of July was being discussed on Twitter, I dismissed it as something that wasn’t going to happen. Well the government seems to believe the demos are going to happen and they have started their usual type of response: deploying soldiers with guns to prevent people, all people including medical doctors from going to work.

    If the government can stop doctors from going to work in the midst of an escalating pandemic, it is sensible to believe that they will do what they did the last time there was a demo. They switched off the internet for all Zimbabweans, they will probably do it again today or tomorrow.

    But wasn’t that action ruled illegal?

    After the government directed that the internet be switched of in January 2019 as demos were happening in our urban centres, the High Court then ruled that that order by the government was illegal.

    The judgement was technical

    High Court Judge Tagu, ruled that the minister of state security who had invoked the Interception of Communications Act to order the shutdown was not the right person to invoke that Act. The law says that actions taken under that Act can only be sanctioned by the president of the republic.

    What the judge didn’t rule on

    Besides the question of who had invoked the Interception of Communications Act and whether that person had authority to , another question before the judge was whether the Act even mandated the issuance of a directive to shut down the internet by anyone. The judge did not make a ruling on that and that is a problem.

    Nothing stops the president from signing the directive to shut down the internet this time standing on the very same Act whether or not he believes the piece of law gives him that power. He can do it today or tomorrow and then the courts can make their ruling after the fact.

    The fact of the matter is that this act only permits the president to issue a warrant or directive to intercept communications but not to stop communication altogether.

    A convenient piece of law for the government

    If indeed the president issues a directive to shut down the internet, he will probably not even draw on the authority of the Interception of Communications Act. Last time, this was the next best piece of legislation to use since President Mnangagwa was out of the country at the time.

    The more convenient piece of legislation that he would probably use is the Presidential Temporary Powers Act which has been his all purpose hammer for anything from currency regulation to some public health regulations. This time he will probably claim that this is necessary because the protests pose a public health risk during the COVID 19 pandemic. This is true of course and it makes me cynical of the organisers of the demo to be honest but that’s besides the point.

    If only the conversation had been about the constitution

    The far more important ruling Judge Tagu did not make was whether the switching off of the internet was even permissible in our constitution to start with. The question was presented before him at the time but he didn’t make any ruling on that. So the government still has cover to claim that they did not contravene a ruling on a constitutional matter.

    So, yes the internet is highly likely to be switched off in Zimbabwe and the government still has a lot of safe room to hide behind legal technicalities. As we said after the ruling by Judge Tagu, it wasn’t uhuru yet.

  • Econet and Cassava offices searched by police to ‘retrieve evidence of money laundering’

    Econet and Cassava offices searched by police to ‘retrieve evidence of money laundering’

    Former Higher Education (before that Information Minister), Jonathan Moyo has just posted a copy of a search and seizure warrant purportedly issued by a Magistrate’s Court to the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) against Econet Wireless.

    The former minster said the police are the Econet and Cassava offices right now (around 9PM on Friday 17 July 2020) executing the warrant. He tweeted this with the pictures:

    @PoliceZimbabwe are right now executing a search & seizure warrant at Masasa offices of @econetzimbabwe & at Cassava Zim offices on Borrowdale Rd in Harare; to get details of every registered @EcoCashZW account from 2 January 2020 to now. A Magistrate granted the warrant!

    To fix #StriveMasiyiwa, the regime is using a defective warrant: the accused is @EcoCashZW, the data sought is for people who are not accused persons. Even worse, the search & seizure is unconstitutional; as it violates the right to privacy. Zimbabwe now closed for business!

    Here’s the text of the affidavit of the oath that the detective of the Criminal Investigation Department of the ZRP made before the court seeking the warrant:

    CID Asset Forfeiture Unit FR 67/2020 Statement “
    AFFIDAVIT
    I, Mkhululi Nyoni NR 29-152573 D 58, do hereby make oath and swear that:

    I am a Detective Inspector and Officer In Charge CID Asset Forfeiture Unit, Northern Region. I am the Investigating Officer in a case of Money Laundering C/s 8(1) of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act 9:24. 2. I have reasonable grounds to suspect that Econet Wireless (Pvt) Ltd is involved in Money laundering activities in violation of section 8(1) (a) (b) ARW section 8(6) of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act (Chapter 9:24). 3. On 9 July 2020, information was received to the effect that during the period extending from 011anuary 2020 to 30 June 2020, ECONET WIRELESS (Pvt) Ltd and as subsidiaries have been fraudulently creating and issuing non-attributable and non-auditable individual subscribers merchants billers and agent which they credited with huge sums of money and distributed to thee runners through their trust accounts. The runners would in turn buy foreign currency from the black before being externalized.

    It is against this background that it is suspected that the accused is laundering the proceeds of crime.

    I therefore apply for the following:-
    a) A list of all subscribers/customers both registered and unregistered in the Econet Wireless (Pvt) Ltd database with full subscriber details for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020.
    b) Summary of transient e-money/airtime credit service posted on the platform through airtime loans for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020.
    c) All financial statements for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020 showing the entire inflow and outflow monetary transactions. I make the above statement solemnly and conscientiously believing the same to be true.
    Signed
    MKHULULI NYONI
    Signed before me on this day of July 2020 at Harare.
    Signed , COMMISSIONER OF OATHS

    And now the text of the warrant itself:

    WARRANT OF SEARCH AND SEIZURE
    Issued In terms of Section 49 (b) and 50(1) (a) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (Chapter 9:07) as read with section 288 of the said Act.
    TO THE PEACE OFFICERS AND OTHER OFFICERS OF THE LAW, PROPER TO THE EXECUTION OF CRIMINAL WARRANTS.
    WHERE AS, from information taken upon oath before myself. there are reasonable grounds for believing that ECONET WIRELESS (PVT) LIMITED is in possession or control of documents. information or records which are required in order to afford evidence in a criminal docket and that are necessary for the purpose of investigating or detecting a case of Money Laundering as defined in section 8(1)(a) of the money Laundering and proceeds of crime Act chapter 9:24.10 examine the documents and records and make extracts from and copies of all such documents and records.
    Section 50 (1) (a) reads: as article referred to in Section forty-nine shall be seized only by virtue of a Warrant issued-(a) By a Magistrate or Justice of Peace if it appears to the Magistrate or Justice from information on oath that there are reasonable grounds for believing that any such article is in the possession or under the control of any person, or upon or in any premises, within his/her area of jurisdiction;
    It is therefore directed that ECONET WIRELESS (PTV) LIMITED should within 7 working days provide the following: i) A list of all subscribers/customers both registered and unregistered in the Econet Wireless (Pot) Ltd database with full subscriber details for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020.
    ii) Summary of transient e-money/airtime credit service posted on the platform through airtime loans for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020.
    iii) All financial statements for the period 2 January 2020 to 30 June 2020 showing the entire inflow and outflow monetary transactions.
    These are therefore. in the State’s name to command you to proceed to ECONET WIRELESS ZIMBABWE there from immediately obtain and take into your custody the above-mentioned documents. records. or information take them to a police station or other place of safety until the matter is finalized or until you further receive further orders from Court.

    EcoCash, the target

    For most of this year, the governemnt and the central bank specifically have placed blame for all our economic woes especially the tanking of local currency on EcoCash, the mobile money business founded by Econet and now under Cassava. The central bank governor submitted in court in May that every time there is a transaction delay on EcoCash, some mysterious person would be siphoning money out of the platform to buy forex on the black market.

    This is very bad precedent

    The fact that a court can issue a warrant against Econet (EcoCash really which is actually an entity on its own) which instructs police to get personal data concerning you and me is worrying. Zimbabwe really is a Banana Republic

  • Businesses could get away with not paying VAT for USD transactions – Mthuli Ncube on it

    Businesses could get away with not paying VAT for USD transactions – Mthuli Ncube on it

    As far as Mthuli Ncube is concerned it’s still not dollarisation even when civil servants will be paid in pseudo USD, even when businesses are now required to display prices in USD, even when government charges for services in USD and even when today he proposes that all VAT registered business configure fiscal devices to capture USD sales so as to pay VAT in that currency. Anyway, I digress:

    Here is what the minister put before parliament:

    Value Added Tax Recording of Electronic Transactions

    Mr Speaker Sir, whereas Government has authorised use of foreign currency on the local market, current legislation does not require VAT Registered Operators to produce customer sales receipts reflecting the currency of trade. There is a risk of understating revenue, especially where foreign currency transactions are reported in local currency.

    In order to mitigate risk on fiscal revenue, as well as enhance transparency,
    I propose to compel VAT Registered Operators to configure Fiscal Devices
    to capture all transactions in the currency of trade and also produce the
    respective invoice in the tendered currency.

    Mthuli Ncube is right of course that businesses were probably collecting US dollars for some of their products and services but then declaring all sales as local currency sales to the state for taxation. It was indeed a loophole.

  • 2% transaction tax is coming to USD transactions

    2% transaction tax is coming to USD transactions

    It was a matter of time wasn’t it? The 2% tax levied on all electronic transactions by the government is such a cash cow, it is not going anywhere. The only direction we should expect it to go is upwards or sideways. Today, in his mid term budget review the minister of finance has extended the tax sideways to cover foreign currency denominated transactions which had been exempt from the painful tax up to now.

    Here’s what the minister proposed to parliament:

    Payment of IMTT on Foreign Currency Transactions

    Current legislation exempts the transfer of money into and from Nostro
    foreign currency accounts from intermediated money transfer tax.

    I propose to extend Intermediated Money Transfer Tax to cover foreign
    currency transactions.

    For the avoidance of doubt, transactions conducted by organisations
    accredited in terms of the Privileges and Immunities Act (Chapter 3:03)
    remain exempt from IMTT.

    The poor can afford to pay more

    The minister is also reviewing the threshold below which transactions are exempt from paying the 2% tax. He says:

    In line with market conditions, I propose to review the Intermediated Money Transfer Tax free threshold for local currency transactions from ZW$100 to ZW$300. In addition, I propose to exempt from tax, foreign currency transactions not exceeding US$5.

    It is interesting to note that when this tax was introduced the threshold for exemption was USD10.00 which the minister said protected the poor. However his revision of the local currency threshold moves it from the current USD1.00 (due to inflation) to USD3.00 and for forex it’s set at USD5.00. Looks like Ncube discovered that the poor are richer than he thought…

    The rich get a break

    The maximum transaction tax that can be paid per transaction was also reviewed:

    I, further propose to review the maximum tax payable per transaction by
    corporates from ZW$25 000 to ZW$50 000 on transactions with values
    exceeding ZW$2 500 000.

    I also propose a maximum tax of US$ 2 000 for foreign currency transactions with a value exceeding US$ 100 000.

    When the tax was first introduced the maximum amount that can be paid per transaction was USD10,000. With this review yes in local currency the value has increased but not to the level where it was when the tax was introduced. The new maximum for local currency transactions is equivalent to about USD500. For forex transactions it’s going to be a painful USD2,000 but this is better than the 10k that was there at first.

  • Killing monopoly by creating a bigger monopoly, Zimswitch as national switch

    Killing monopoly by creating a bigger monopoly, Zimswitch as national switch

    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 Zimswitch effectively the end all and be all when it comes to 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)

  • EcoCash is under threat – gvt to blame BUT underlying problem is EcoCash/Cassava/Econet

    EcoCash is under threat – gvt to blame BUT underlying problem is EcoCash/Cassava/Econet

    Yesterday a colleague mentioned that they were denied using EcoCash at a service station. All other forms of payment were acceptable except EcoCash. This didn’t surprise me. First let’s make sure those who have been living under a rock are caught up:

    On Friday the 26th of June 2020, the Government of Zimbabwe declared that all mobile money (of which EcoCash has 98% share of market) was suspended with immediate effect. The government then made a face saving ‘clarification’ which was that all agents had been suspended but all transactions could proceed as normal except that merchants have no other way to move money out of their merchant wallets besides transferring it into linked bank accounts.

    This is a problem for EcoCash

    If merchants start discouraging the use of EcoCash for purchases it’s a serious threat to EcoCash. It makes sense though that merchants would do this because of the limited flexibility they are now offered on the platform.

    Suddenly EcoCash is in a position where their utility to users is now less than it was. The payments company has gone into overdrive promoting their service. They are particularly promoting liquidations unto their platform which currently due to agent suspension can only happen through moving money from bank accounts unto the mobile wallet. Here is an example of EcoCash promotional material:

    EcoCash is now forced to campaign for bank account opening, this is something that they never would have done.

    Sadly for EcoCash, money can now only come on to their platform through banks and therefore they now need to have as many people as possible opening bank accounts. The government really handed them one this time.

    The gvt is not the biggest problem

    Ultimately what poses a threat to EcoCash is EcoCash itself and the organisational culture into which the fintech was born. The Econet group (Yea Econet Wireless, Cassava…) sucks at customer service and more importantly at customer centred product design. This is what makes EcoCash vulnerable. Let’s try to trace that one out a bit:

    How EcoCash won in the first place

    We have documented EcoCash’s excellent strategy from the time it was founded in a write up we did two years ago. What they did well was to copy MPesa in Kenya really well and more than that, they were able to translate what they saw in Kenya to their context in Zimbabwe for example by choosing to base their service on USSD and not via SIM Toolkit.

    The decisive factor however, was that Econet (at that time this was just an Econet product) understood that mobile money was a two sided market which requires figuring out the chicken and egg problem effectively. They went all out to recruit agents that would facilitate liquidations onto and off the mobile money platform. At launch, the service already had a very strong network of agents which gave it utility for internal remittances immediately.

    EcoCash never rested on their laurels, they kept expanding their agent footprint. They started recruiting merchants too: businesses that would receive payments via the mobile money service. As users saw utility in the services, they signed up in droves. The more users signed up, the more merchants and agents were attracted to the service creating a vicious cycle. That, ladies and gentlemen is what they call network effects.

    Markets with network effects are generally ‘winner takes all’ kind of markets. Indeed, EcoCash took it all. They dominate the space. Their dominance made them refuse to compromise when they dictated negotiated terms with banks to integrate with their system. Some banks held out for a bit but the service was just too dominant in the retail and peer to peer payments space that literally all banks capitulated and accepted the EcoCash terms.

    Customer as a trapped victim

    In the USA Facebook is a bigger deal than it is here. The social networking site is used by everyone and their dog kind of. Facebook the company is hated though. I have heard a lot of folks from the USA saying they were going to leave Facebook but then they never do. Reason: network effects. When everyone is on there, moving away means you are cut off.

    That is the beauty of network effects but that is also the problem. Network effects make customers stick with a business because they can’t leave not because they want to stay. I believe that is the case with EcoCash and Econet in general. Their customers really love to hate them but they feel they need them.

    It sounds like an enviable position right? To be needed, not just wanted. On the internet though where competition is unlimited, the only solid way to win is to be wanted. This is why Econet has always struggled with products that inherently need to have internet assumptions. The group is excellent at leveraging licenses and such but they are not at all good at actually building products.

    What happens when they fall out of favour with the guy who dishes out licenses as has happened with EcoCash? They need to fall on customer choice, customers that are fans who believe that EcoCash just works. Do they have such customers though? I do not know if they do.

    The reason why some merchants are declining EcoCash is evidence that the EcoCash customers themselves are not raving fans that will go to the next store if they can’t pay using their beloved EcoCash.

    Put another way: if the only way one can fund their EcoCash wallet besides being sent money by someone else is through the bank, why should they move money to EcoCash since they can just make payments directly from their bank account? Is EcoCash cheaper? Is it faster? Is it simpler? No. No. No. There lies the problem.

    Where is the evidence?

    What’s the evidence that EcoCash is not customer centric? Well, their user experience sucks. It sucked and then they did an upgrade in November last year and it sucked even more!

    Another example? Customers have been asking for an easy way to get statements for a very long time. EcoCash never thought it important to make this a feature even on their mobile app (supposing that USSD is too constrained). Worse: when an entrepreneur developed Ecoledger, an app that made it possible for EcoCash customers to have statements and other pecks, EcoCash tried to tarnish the guy’s name by some unfortunate social media campaign.

    Business users of EcoCash have to request a statement whenever they want. In fact, no, not whenever they want! We are one such business that was told that we had requested our statement too frequently at some point. Recently, after emailing the same place we used to get statements, we were told to visit an Econet shop. Meanwhile, EcoCash is running a campaign where they are telling people to stay at home and transact remotely to keep from COVID 19! This is the problem: the business is not inherently designed with the customer at the centre.

    This is why merchants are quick to say no to EcoCash. To merchants, if transacting on EcoCash directly is no longer possible and they have to send money to the bank first why should they accept money into EcoCash in the first place? They don’t want to keep begging to get their statement. There are zero tools for businesses. Why? Because Econet is not a builder of products, they are a leverager of network effects and licences.

    Why the suspension of agents is affecting EcoCash

    Yes the government has suspended mobile money agent transactions but that this has affected EcoCash is EcoCash’s fault. The fact of the matter is that for a long time now whenever a ‘cash-in’ or ‘cash-out’ transaction happened at an agent generally there wasn’t any cash that changed hands except for the few instances where the agents were selling cash. What was happening is that people were ‘hacking’ agent transactions to do business to business, business to consumer and consumer to business transactions.

    If EcoCash had a product development culture that should have been a signal to them. They would have designed appropriate tools that served their customers specifically. When you find a big portion of your customers hacking your product to make it more useful it should tell you what to build for them.

    Had EcoCash looked at this from a product builder perspective, they would have created new channels that served their customers separately from agent transactions that justifiably raised suspicion with regulators. As far as regulators could see, there were a lot of cash-in and cash-out transactions in an environment where there is no cash! So the authorities banned agent transactions.

    This could have been different if business to business, business to consumer and consumer to business tools had been built from the ground up. EcoCash’s attempt at such was introducing what they called bulk payer lines which were not a good product at all because the lines were essentially just agent lines. That is the problem when there is no imagination for product evolution. EcoCash was happy to get their imposed tax for every transaction on their platform without thinking about improving the experience of their users.

    What does all this mean?

    If the moves by the government are going to affect EcoCash in any way, it’s going to be because EcoCash has not made their customers into fans. Those customers have no reason to keep on the platform if there are no network effects to keep them locked in.

    EcoCash is pushing for people to open bank accounts. However, once people have bank accounts, what is the distinct thing that will make them need to move money from those accounts into EcoCash? An agent footprint is no longer a selling point and not because the government banned agents. It’s because agents don’t matter much in a cashless economy.

    Right now the more important selling point is the availability of EcoCash even to the smallest merchants. Some of these very small merchants don’t have merchant accounts but use their personal wallets to accept payments. EcoCash needs to quickly build appropriate tools for these users if they want to remain relevant.

    The easier thing is for them to focus on the pain of unfair treatment from government (yes it is unfair) and to conclude that it is the source of their woes. However, if they will be humble to realise that they could have preempted this predicament by proper product development and a laser focus on the customer then they can get out of this stronger.

    This is not easy though. Culture is the devil.