If you are an ardent Techzim follower you know that we have been selling airtime since November here on our platform. To buy the airtime you just visit our site and click this link and go through a simple process.

That’s all good. Anyway, we figured out that not everyone who has internet bundles at anytime to access our site but some may just have Facebook bundles (only) but they would still want to buy our ‘cheaper airtime’. So, we decided to make it possible for those with Facebook bundles to buy airtime from us as well. And the process of buying airtime from our Facebook is quite easy. You literally just go 3 simple steps (of keying in your information) and our bot will deliver your airtime immediately. Now, how do you buy airtime on Techzim’s Facebook page?

How to buy airtime on Techzim’s Facebook

• Log in to your Facebook account and search for our Techzim page
• Go and click the ‘ Send Message’ Icon on our Techzim page
• Now send the message “airtime”
• The bot will reply telling you how to input your details. If you want to buy a dollar’s worth of Netone airtime, for instance, you just input: 1#0718917XXX#0773870XXX. Where “1” will be the amount of airtime, “0718917XXX” will be the number to which your airtime will be credited and “0773870XXX”.
• After which, an EcoCash prompt will pop up on your phone and you input your EcoCash passcode
• And you receive your airtime immediately

You know that sometimes technology spoils the fun, you might input all your details correctly and pay but your airtime won’t get credited. In that case, you can just contact us by sending a message in the same inbox or write us on our Facebook Wall and then we will solve your problem. That’s when the ‘order number’ and phone number, you see at the end of your purchasing process (as you can see in the screenshot), will come in handy.

P.S Unfortunately, at the moment you can only buy airtime from on Techzim’s Facebook by paying using Ecocash only.

The post You Can Now Buy All Your Airtime From Techzim On Facebook appeared first on Techzim.

Zimbabwe’s most commonly used payment platform, EcoCash has been nominated for two awards in the Best Mobile Innovation for Payment and Fintech and Outstanding Mobile Contribution to the UN SDGs categories.

The first category is pretty self-explanatory, whilst the second nomination is for mobile technology that contributes towards the United Nations Sustainable Goals for Development. The goals were set in 2015 and the goals are meant to “address the global challenges we face”. Once you consider the impact that EcoCash has had on Zimbabwe’s financial inclusion it clearly makes sense for the mobile money platform to be one of the technologies on the list.

Who will they be competing against?

For the Best Mobile Innovation for Payment and Fintech award, EcoCash will be fighting off the following;

• Dialog Axiata PLC for Dialog Axiata Genie
• JS Bank for JS Bank
• KT for Genie Pay
• Cassava Smartech and Mahindra Comviva for EcoCash Merchant Payments powered by mobiquity Money
• Voyager Innovations for PayMaya

For the Outstanding Mobile Contribution to the UN SDGs category the other nominees are:

• IrisGuard UK Ltd for The EyePay® and World Food Programme
• Telekomunikasi Selular Indonesia & Habibi Garden for Habibi Garden
• Telenor for Tonic Universal Health Coverage Platform
• World Food Programme for SCOPE CODA

The winners of the awards will be announced on the during MWC Barcelona which will be held from 25-28 February.

Also read, Ecocash CEO, Natalie Jabangwe Appointed To President Mnangagwa’s 24 Member Advisory Council

The post EcoCash Nominated For Two Awards At The GSMA Global Mobile Awards 2019 appeared first on Techzim.

For the past few weeks there has been a message circulating telling people that their Ecocash balances were going to be written down to $0.00 in response to a government directive. The tone of the message is carefully crafted to match the tone of the two SMS messages that Econet sent out when the government ordered the internet to be shutdown.

Here is the message:

Dear valued customer

We got an instruction under the ministerial directive to clear all Ecocash wallet balances to 0.00 .We are obliged to act when directed to do so and the matter is beyond our control. All inconveniences are sincerely regretted.

Here is the message Econet send out when the government ordered ISPs to shutdown the internet for the first time:

Further to a warrant issued by the Minister of State in the President¿s Office for National Security through the Director General of the President¿s Dept,acting in terms of the Interception of Communications Act,Internet Services are currently suspended across all networks and Internet Service providers.We are obliged to act when directed to do so and the matter is beyond our control.All inconveniences are sincerely regretted.

One look at the first message tells you it’s fake. Whoever crafted it made a serious mistake. S/He was supposed to use the indefinite article “a” instead of the definite article “the” . Lawyers care too much about language and intended meaning to make such a serious error. There are also no details as to which ministry issued the directive and on what legs the directive is walking on. In any case Ecocash falls under the ambit of the Reserve Bank so any directives would be from the governor not the/a minister.

Even the horse agrees

Econet Wireless’s media relations and communications executive Mr Fungai Mandiveyi confirmed that the message was fake in a written response to The Standard. Talk about hearing it straight from the horse its mouth.

We would like to urge our customers to ignore the fake and malicious message being circulated in some social media circles purporting to be coming from Econet and alleging that Econet received a directive to clear all EcoCash balances to zero. We wish to assure our customers and the public at large that their EcoCash balances are safe and secure.

There you can rest easy.

The post Econet: It’s Fake News,Government Has Not Directed Us To Clear Ecocash Balances appeared first on Techzim.

Have you ever wanted to leave your bag (or whatever you will be carrying) somewhere in town for a while and return later on to collect it? If you are like me there is a startup that can help us get on with our other business whilst our bags are kept safe somewhere.

The guys who were behind the Zimall e-commerce platform have come up with service that lets you rent a locker to store your bag for a certain fee per hour. The automated self-service lockers enable you to pay for storage, put your bag in the locker and collect the bag alone without any human intervention. It’s self-service.

With biometric technology integrated into the system, the parcel lockers seem to be quite secure as nobody, but you alone, can open the locker cabinet you would have put your things. Also, the biometric technology will spare you the fear of losing keys, receipts or pin-codes to collect your bag since you only need a finger to verify if you are the real owner of the locker’s contents. Check out the below demonstration of how the lockers will work:

How much is it?

Its costs 50cents (bond or mobile money) per hour to store your bag/luggage depending on the size of the locker size you need.

How can I pay?

The lockers will be integrated with all mobile money payment solutions so will be able to pay with Ecocash, Telecash, and Netone. At the moment there seems to be no facility for paying with a debit or credit card. However, if you don’t have money in your mobile wallet, don’t worry you can also pay with bond coins.

Are the lockers available yet?

The lockers are not yet installed in public places yet but you can visit Batanai Mall to see a prototype of this locker.

Verdict

Its seem like a good service but I’m not convinced it will be profitable in the current economic environment where people are not willing to easily part with their Bollars (bond notes). Even though its a really good service, but frankly It’s not that indispensable such that people can spend their hard-earned Bollars on it.

The post Rent-A-Locker: ZIMall Pops Up With A New Service That Lets You Rent Lockers To Store Your Luggage appeared first on Techzim.

So yeah, good thing that Ecocash introduced the FCA wallet for USD transactions. Of course this is only a good idea to the extent that they have good USD liquidity to make the movement of money from one end of the country to the next possible. Let’s assume they do.

The thing I would fix about the user experience is this:

The current set up

Right now if you want to use the USD wallet you go through the menu to Wallet Services then Multiple currencies and after that select to use the USD wallet. I am supposing here you already know how to use the FCA wallet and you already subscribed to it.

The problem though is that once you have selected to transact with the FCA wallet it becomes your default until you change back to the RTGS wallet. This is a problem because one can forget that the active wallet is the USD wallet and send USD’s to some person whilst intending to send Zimbollar. This almost happened with a colleague!

A mistake on sending money can be reversed more or less easily but if you were paying for a good or service you will be tossed to and fro to get the reversal you need especially if you are dealing with an uncooperative merchant.

What I would change

The simple change I would make would be to allow users to subscribe for the FCA wallet and once they do to introduce a single extra step on performing transactions for the user to choose which wallet they want to use. This way, users don’t need to shuffle between one wallet and the other and risk sending the wrong currency to the wrong person. They decide on which currency just before sending or paying for stuff.

Of course my way is not necessarily the right or best way. It’s possible the majority of folks prefer the current set up. I am too forgetful perhaps and I am fearful of sending the little greenbacks I wish kunhonga (to come across) to the wrong person.

The post How The Ecocash USD Wallet Experience Can Be Improved appeared first on Techzim.

It seems a lot of EcoCash users are having challenges buying airtime, bundles and transacting with the dreaded double debit rearing it’s ugly head once again.

These problems seem to have been occurring since yesterday and if you’re unlucky you might have already experienced it. What’s happening is that when you pay for something, your EcoCash is either saying the payment has been successful whilst the payment isn’t reflecting on the receiving end or you’re failing to pay but your money is still being debited.

Of all the errors this is a frustrating one and we’ve seen a number of people have this error whilst trying to buy airtime and others facing it elsewhere;

@econet_support Tried purchasing some daily bundles using ecocash, received two messages, one of successfully paying to mobile broadband, the other of failing to buy bundles. Money deducted, no bundles. Seeking your help

— Siso (@owakoNkomo) February 10, 2019

We’ve reached out to EcoCash reps to understand what the issue is and we will update once they have responded.

The post Having Trouble Using EcoCash? It Seems You’re Not The Only One appeared first on Techzim.

A fraudster who used EcoCash to defraud people has been sentenced to 6 years in jail by a Guruve magistrate. Takemore Jamu, the fraudster used perhaps one of the most simple ways to swindle a certain retail outlet groceries worth $12 000.

How did he do it?

Apparently, this guy presented himself as a buyer and a wholesaler to the retailer, Macshame Matika. So in his capacity as a false buyer, he went to Macshame Matika to buy groceries using EcoCash.

Now when making payments with EcoCash: the sender and receiver both receive confirmation messages, that tells them that transaction was successful.

So what the fraudster did was; he lied to the retailer that he had paid for the groceries using EcoCash and that the retailer’s confirmation message had been delayed but at the same, he (the fraudster) had received his confirmation message. The fraudster would then show the retailer his ‘edited-confirmation message’. He did this for 23 times, conning the retailer $12 000 worth of groceries.

Newsday’s report didn’t really point out how the scam really played out so frankly, I’m not completely sure how the retailer was fooled.  Even so, I’m wondering how could the retailer believe that his confirmation messages are always getting delayed for 23 times. 

Getting caught

The fraudster tried to do the same trick the 24th time, but the retailer perhaps had an epiphany and he scrutinised the fraudster’s confirmation message, only to see that it was fake. That’s when the retailer contacted the police to apprehend the fraudster and recover the groceries.

The post Fraudster Used EcoCash To Defraud A Retailer $12000 appeared first on Techzim.

The last half of last year saw many banks suspending the ‘Swipe into EcoCash’ for unexplained reasons, leaving people unable to move money their bank accounts into the EcoCash wallet. Among the affected customers were those from CABS.

But, CABS customers can start their Tuesday well knowing that it’s now possible to use the ‘Swipe into EcoCash’ service again as announced by EcoCash:

The post CABS Customers Can Now Use The ‘Swipe Into EcoCash’ Service Again appeared first on Techzim.

While Zimbabwe certainly still has a biting foreign currency crisis one thing appears to have gotten less severe for some reason: The Cash crisis, which is still definitely a problem appears to have gotten less severe.

In June last year whenever I wanted to cash out money from my Ecocash wallet I had to part with “20%” on average. I have Ecocash agents seem to have a weak grasp on how percentages work. Often what they mean by 20% is that they will charge 20% on the amount that you actually Cash Out.

• For example, if you get to an agent and cash out $100 you will get $80
• In cases like this, they claim they are charging 20% when in actual fact they the cost would be 20/80 i.e. 25%
• Sometimes they get it right, especially if instead of asking them how much you get if you cash out a certain amount, you ask them how much you should cash out to get a certain amount.

Anyway the average Cash Out premium last year was 20% although it varied wildly during Mthuli Ncube’s early months. At one point the Cash Out rate was a steep 45% as people panicked.

The rate is now a manageable 5%

The Cash Out rate in a lot of the suburbs I frequent varies a lot. At the end/beginning of most months, the rate is high as there is high demand for cash. Where I stay they usually charge 10% for coins and 15% for notes during this period. The same rates are usually applied whenever civil servants get paid. Which makes sense as the government is the largest employer in this country thanks to an ailing economy.

During the off-peak days like right now on the 19th which is mid-month rates vary from 5%-8% if you want coins and 9%-12% if one is looking for notes. As my colleague has so ably pointed out notes have a higher value because they are easy to carry and count. They are especially a hit with money changers who shun coins.

While that might seem like a lot these rates are quite comparable to the rates we used to pay banks before the RBZ intervened at the beginning of the cash crisis. Also to reiterate what I have been saying, there is still a cash crisis out there with most people who want cash having to either pay a premium for it or spend their productive lives in queues.

Both choices are not ideal and should be solved in a functional economy. However, the black market rates have fallen to what one may argue are tolerable levels compared to the hell we were going through before. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to pay someone to give me back my money.

Ecocash has given up

Ecocash (the higher-ups) also seem to have given up the fight against the practice of agents charging a premium. It’s not like it is particularly hard to spot this. I mean why would one cash out  $12.67?

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The post Ecocash Cashout Rates Have Fallen On The Black Market appeared first on Techzim.

While parsing the latest Monetary Policy statement from the RBZ something caught my eye: hidden beneath the exciting announcement that the RBZ has finally found Jesus and accepts bond notes, RTGS and USD are not equal peers, was the announcement of a local settlement platform.

This was announced a few weeks ago

A few weeks ago towards the end of January, 28 January to be exact, in a circular from the RBZ where they were inviting banks to send test transactions to the system.

CIRCULAR TO RTGS PARTICIPANTS — MULTICURRENCY UPGRADE — ADDITION OF USD ON THE RTGS PLATFORM

We advise that the RTGS platform has been upgraded to include the United States Dollar (USD) to facilitate settlement of USD Nostro FCA transactions. The function is now available in the test environment for testing by participating institutions.

All participants are urged to send test messages end to end and ensure a full cycle of the transaction is completed. Results of the test should be logged immediately on the attached user acceptance testing form and submitted to the Reserve Bank on a daily basis until Friday,01 February 2019.

It is expected that the settlement of USD transactions will commence soon thereafter in the live environment.

Please be advised accordingly.

J. Mutepfa,
Deputy Director, Financial Markets Division — National Payment Systems

It seems the tests were successful

It would certainly appear these tests were successful as the RBZ has now announced, in the Monetary Statement that the local Nosto settlement system will go live next week on Monday:

Given the successful completion of the separation of RTGS FCAs and Nostro FCAs, the Bank[RBZ] is, with effect from 25th February 2019, putting in place a local Nostro FCAs settlement platform to allow for domestic inter-bank settlement of Nostro FCA transfers.

The case right now

Right now Nostro FCAs suffer from restricted mobility. Each bank has its own Nostro accounts for various currencies with USD being the dominant one. Each bank has different rules regarding what you can or cannot do using these accounts. The only way to move funds is via wire transfers which are prohibitively expensive and require third-party banks to complete the transaction.

The truth is that prior to separation of RTGS and Nostro USD accounts there was really no need to create a local settlement platform as the two were deemed par so the usual RTGS transfer was adequate. Separation of the two was a tacit admission that the Nostro and RTGS balance were not equal but Nostro funds were really not very mobile because there was no system to move them.

The introduction of interbank currency trading means that such a system was sorely needed and the RBZ has announced it just in time.

Download the Monetary Policy Statement 

Also Read: Here Are The Answers To All Your Questions About The RTGS Dollars

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The post Local Nostro Settlement System To Go Live Soon appeared first on Techzim.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been getting a number of emails regarding EcoCash subscribers and remittances or lack thereof. There seems to be some serious problems when it comes to EcoCash’s partnership with World Remit and that has resulted in a number of people failing to get their money.

Here is a thread of some of the anonymous emails we’ve been getting regarding this issue:

Ecocash is scamming us of US dollars

Ecocash is scamming us of hard earned US dollars from diaspora. The money that is sent via world remit to be collected from Ecocash is not pickable from this side. We have been going to Ecocash main outlets in Bulawayo without success. More over many are using the money now as Ecocash bond

May you publish this scam. You cannot even transfer the money to FCA account nor reverse it, this is the biggest scam.

Here’s another one:

Please investigate what’s going on at Econet/Ecocash. I have been sent money through this service from diaspora but I am having a challenge getting USD from Econet. Is this a case of false advertising?

These two emails were sent within 12 days of each other and it seems there are some issues. We reached out to EcoCash and they explained to us that this wasn’t the norm:

EcoCash assures the public that it has been paying out funds remitted to EcoCash customers via World Remit in hard currency and in full, and will continue to do so.
The company regrets any logistical delays experienced by customers in Bulawayo and assures them that these are being addressed.

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The post What’s Going On With EcoCash Remittances? appeared first on Techzim.

While it was initially conceived as a way to send and receive money, Ecocash has become the unofficial currency of Zimbabwe. They might be calling them RTGS dollars but Ecocash is the best way to move these dollars. ZIPIT is a distant second but it is no less useful. The truth of the matter is that no many people would actually use RTGS to make and receive payments.

There are two universally known reasons for this:

• RTGS is expensive-it costs a whopping $5 now (used to be more) to move money for each transaction you make even if it’s for $1. Mthuli Ncube’s 2% is not a relevant cost here as you will have to pay it even if you use Ecocash or ZIPIT
• RTGS deposits take a lot of hours to reflect as there is nothing real time about them despite the name. That sucks big time.

Everyone, especially banks, knows all these things. Which makes it strange that Standard Chartered has, in essence, forced it’s account holders to use RTGS. One of the reasons why I have simply abandoned my account.

Standard Chartered partially linked to ZIPIT and Ecocash

For a long time, StanChart was not linked to Ecocash and you could only make ZIPIT payments and not receive them. Then that changed at some point and I was thrilled. I received an SMS on my phone telling me that all accounts would be automatically linked to Ecocash allowing for full integration. Finally, I thought.

Also at some point, ZIPIT receipts were made possible allowing me to receive ZIPIT payments into my bank account. To reiterate ZIPIT and Ecocash are just an everyday part of Zimbabwean lives in as much as checks (sic) and credit cards are part of say the American domestic bill life.

To clarify during this time I could make and receive ZIPIT payments using my StanChart account. I could do Wallet-to-Bank and Bank-to-Wallet transactions on the same account using Ecocash. Those were beautiful months which meant me using one account and ignoring all those other lite accounts.

Alas, that was short lived. Sometime in midst of last year, StanChart started having “challenges” on their platform. These challenges manifested themselves in a strange way: ZIPIT receipts and Wallet-to-Bank transactions were no longer possible. In the meantime, you could still make ZIPIT payments and do Bank-to-Wallet transactions. In other words, it was back to square one. If you wanted to receive payments into your account you had to rely on RTGS.

For a long time, I would visit the help desk whenever I could but the story was always the same: some guys somewhere were working flat out to make sure full service was restored. Many moons later StanChart is still having these challenges.

I am starting to doubt these system challenges are real.  To be certain I do not have any proof of this but hear me out: A bank of the calibre of StanChart, if there to put their minds to it can certainly marshal ICT resources that would dwarf any of the locally based banks we have who have Ecocash and ZIPIT fully working. That much is certain.

Even if the challenges are real it means nobody is working flat out to make sure full service is restored. If there is such a person they deserve an incompetence award of some sort, because that’s what they are incompetent. Personally, the distinct impression I get is that StanChart is not very enthusiastic about these missing services at all so they are quite happy to leave things as they are.

The person who ends up losing here is the customer-me and you. That is very sad. Right now a StanChart account if we are being frank is not very useful, at least not to me. After you receive your salary in it all you can do are payments. If you want to receive a payment you have to wait for days.

Dear StanChart, you can do better than this! So, do better. In the meantime, as a small gesture of my disapproval, I will let my account fallow as I have been doing for the past number of months.

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The post Many Moons Later Standard Chartered Is Still Having ZIPIT And Ecocash “Challenges” appeared first on Techzim.

When Kwese closed their satellite TV we took a look at the products that Econet had launched and closed over the years. One of the services that we could not definitively place on the dead pile was EcoShopper. If you had forgotten or don’t know what EcoShopper is then you are not alone.

EcoShopper, the middle child with many siblings

EcoShopper was one of Econet’s many ill-fated attempts to conquer the local e-commerce scene. The other efforts being the many versions of Tengai and of late Ownai. Except of course EcoShopper wasn’t your typical e-commerce offering. The idea was that you could send groceries to your rural granny instead of sending her money.

Launched bank in 2015 EcoShopper was a partnership between Econet and National Foods. Instead of sending money which could be misappropriated or in the event of some areas could not be collected due to the absence of agents the sender would:

1. Visit the Ecoshopper website
2. Select one of five baskets that ranged in cost from $20-$150
3. Select the nearest National Foods depot closest to the recipient
4. Enter the recipient’s details
5. Enter their Ecocash number
6. A prompt would be sent to their phone asking them for a pin
7. Once payment was made Econet would do a little behind the scenes magic and get in touch with National Foods
8. The recipient is notified and goes to collect their goods

Suffice to say EcoShopper never really went anywhere thanks in part to the fact that it seems some National Foods depots were really not aware of the service. We tried the service and never received the goods. In the process, we also came face to face with the herculean task of recovering our Ecocash money.

Why EcoShopper never became a thing

There are several reasons for this:

• The aforementioned poor implementation. Big companies do this a lot they announce something with much pomp and fanfare. You immediately visit one of their branches and suddenly realise you know more about the product than the guy behind the customer services desk.
• The basket idea- now there is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever seen. Some shops still persist with this sort of thing. That takes away flexibility in an unforgivable way. If I were to dare send my grandmother baked beans she would slap the silliness out of me. She has tons of beans her granary why would she want baked beans? And in God’s name why would I send her mealie-meal. Basket’s and similar product groups are dumb-stop pushing them.
• Expensive baskets- say what you will those baskets were expensive. You could receive cash and get all those goods plus more at close to 75% of the cost. I did the math.
• Ecocash was just still a wallet, not a payment method back then.
• They did not offer delivery: the customer had to pick up the goods and most National Food depots are in towns or growth points there are plenty of agents making cash outs possible.

The site is abandoned but still functional

EcoShopper was not shut down, it was just abandoned. To this day their website is still up and pretty much functional. If you go through the motions of placing an order you will even receive an Ecocash pin prompt on your phone! If you enter your pin your money will disappear into the belly of the beast. Getting a refund with Ecocash is not easy business so do not try this at home.

It’s not clear why Econet has not at least taken the site down since clearly, the service has not worked for a while.

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The post The EcoShopper Site Lives On As A Forgotten Zombie appeared first on Techzim.

It seems there are some issues EcoCash app users are facing when trying to use their mobile money application. The error is basically making the app unusable and anyone opening the application is met instead by an error message locking them out of the application.

Some users trying to open the application are being met by an error saying:

There are problems with the security certificate for this site.

The app proceeds to close itself after and if that’s your preferred method of EcoCash-ing then you have to go old school. Thankfully the USSD menu is working as expected which means you can still transact via EcoCash if you absolutely have to. Yes, it’s a slower option but it’s the option many users are accustomed to anyway so this won’t be a big issue.

What could this error mean?

We’ve reached out to EcoCash reps to understand what exactly is going on with the application and we’re still waiting for their response. Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept data you send to the server. This is the scarier scenario but there could be something simpler and less sinister at play. This error also occurs as a result of a browser that does not recognize the authority of the certificate and is one of the most common problems which then presents an error message saying there is a problem with the security certificate on the page. In order for the security certificates to work, your device must already have a root certificate. Your browser already contains a list of root certificates for trusted certificates. When a website certificate does not match any certificate authority on your browser’s list, you receive an error message.

Technical mumbo-jumbo aside this could mean that the EcoCash app is being updated and somehow the security certificates in that newer app are not aligning perfectly with what already exists in our browsers. The fact that the application isn’t opening also means you’re pretty safe even in the highly unlikely event that there is some interception of any sort. Hopefully, the more convenient way of transacting will be working soon.

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The post The EcoCash App Is Currently Down For Some Users appeared first on Techzim.

I’m pretty sure we all hate fiddling with USSD codes when we are about to pay for something in a shop. The dread of that transaction timing out or you missing out one detail and having to restart the process keeps me up at night.

In September of 2018, these fears looked like a thing of the past as EcoCash announced that they would be introducing a more convenient way to pay. Scan and Pay was supposed to be a revolutionary method of payment in the Zimbabwean market but 6 months later I am yet to come across the payment method.

It seems I’m not the only one who missed this one. In fact many don’t even know that it exists;

EcoCash released Scan and Pay (QR Payments) back in September. Since then…

— Techzim (@Techzim) February 25, 2019

After posting our Twitter poll 952 people had voted and 52% had knowledge of it but hadn’t used it. 43% had no idea what it was and only 5% (or 48 people) claim to have used the product. I sincerely hope those aren’t product testers who worked on Scan & Pay. That doesn’t count. Jokes aside though, one of the people who has used the product replied to my comment asking where they had come across the product and they claim they made payments using QR at a number of outlets including Chicken Slice and Total & actually enjoyed the process. This means it’s working but it just isn’t as widespread as I personally hoped it would be by now.

Why is that the case?

The need for data…

If there’s something we can all agree on, it’s that mobile data in Zimbabwe is prohibitively expensive and because the EcoCash app (which contains the QR option) requires mobile data, it means this payment option is going to be available to a minor set of customers. Most people buy data bundles and the data they have can’t be used in the EcoCash App (which is why zero rating the EcoCash was a good idea).

Maybe EcoCash realised this and stopped marketing it, and once that happens merchants also stopped taking it up because either they didn’t know about it or their customer bases didn’t know about it.

Is QR better than what we have already?

We had this conversation with some of my colleagues and they felt that QR wasn’t more intuitive than the ways we are already using when paying via mobile money and to an extent, I agree. Because Scan and Pay wasn’t using Unique QR codes for every transaction but instead a QR code that’s unique to the merchant, the process was quite lengthy. Customers would have to; Open the EcoCash App > Go to make payments > QR Pay > Scan the QR Code > Enter amount to pay > Enter EcoCash Pin. This certainly seems slower than just having the till operator enter your number and a prompt pop-up appears on your phone asking you for your pin.

With unique QR codes that pop-up on a display that problem could be solved but there would now be an adoption problem since merchants would have to build displays that generate these special codes and that’s an extra cost that might not justify the outlay.

The way we are paying with mobile money already seems pretty convenient and fast as is and maybe QR isn’t even necessary to begin with, unless it is being adopted in its most advanced versions.

Maybe the final nail in QR’s coffin is that it’s yet another thing for those who are not as tech savvy to learn. It will be a nightmare trying to teach the older folk how this works and because it’s already doubtful if this more convenient than USSD most users and merchants alike are better off sticking to USSD.

This is not the first time this has been tried

Pan african bank, Ecobank had a go at this QR thing with their own similarly titled Scan+Play but it suffered a similar fate.

A startup -Zapper- also tried their hand at this but that system also does not seem to have picked up pace and it seems the fragmentation of the Zimbabwean payment space is yet another reason why it’s difficult to introduce a new payment option that is seamlessly adopted by merchants and users.

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The RBZ governor willed it and now it has been done: Zimbabwe has a new currency called the RTGS $ which is now our primary currency instead of the USD we have used for the past 10 years. Ecocash wallets which used to be in USD are now explicitly in RTGS $.

To make sure that there is no doubt about this all Ecocash related transaction messages now explicitly state the fact that you are transacting in RTGS $ when you use your normal wallet. It is not clear when this started but I noticed it today when I made a payment.

Accepting reality

The RBZ’s delusions before this were creating a lot of confusion in the business world especially after they ordered banks to separate between FCA-RTGS and FCA Nostro. People still referred to what was in our banks and Ecocash wallets as Nostro. So did the old Ecocash transaction messages that prefixed whatever amount was involved in the transaction as USD.

As of the time of writing some strings in the Ecocash USSD prompts still refer to USD but that is likely to change soon. These updates might also be the reason why the Ecocash App is currently down but that’s just speculation on my part.

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If you’re currently trying to purchase ZESA tokens via EcoCash you may be facing some challenges and that’s because the system isn’t working as advertised right now.

The mobile money service provider sent out the statement below making it clear the problem lies with ZESA’s system:

Dear Valued Customer

You may experience service disruptions in trying to purchase ZESA prepaid tokens as the ZESA token purchase system is not stable.

We are working with ZETDC and Powertel to resolve the technical challenge and we will advise you as soon as normal service is restored.

We are pleased to advise that all other services on EcoCash are working.

It’s probably a good idea to buy your ZESA tokens using other means whilst this disturbance is attended to.

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Yesterday I woke up to this SMS message from EcoSure:

Your initial premium payment of $1.00 failed. The premium should be paid by 29-Feb-20 to complete your EcoSure Lite registration

I did the stupid thing of ignoring it and just thinking ‘well maybe I was testing something on EcoSure some time ago and I subscribed now they want me to pay.’

An hour later I saw a colleague publish that EcoSure had subscribed Econet customers without their consent and more than that, they had deducted money from their EcoCash wallets, again without consent or at least the pretense of asking for consent.

So the only reason a dollar was not deducted from my EcoCash wallet is that I didn’t have any money in there.

The aggressive push

There is a very evident aggressive push for the market at Cassava especially and at Econet. This is leading to road side agents who are lying about the specifics of the apps they are pushing people to download. They really don’t care because they are paid $5 when they get a person to download the four apps.

Half trained agents are calling people asking for their email passwords. All to get folks to download and register on the Vaya app. The millions of Econet subscribers are being spammed every day. If you opt out of receiving their promotional messages, they only stop coming for a few days and they start coming again.

It feels like we committed a crime by being Econet subscribers. Do they think they have done so much for us that they can send us any message whenever they want, call us at whatever time and ask us for our passwords and then subscribe us to their insurance service unilaterally and take our money?

It’s not a system failure

Econet or Cassava should not even think about taking out big bold newspaper ads blaming a technical glitch for yesterday, the EcoSure incident was not a system error. It would be scary if it were. A system that can randomly start subscribing people to a service? It was a bad judgement call. To be honest, that person should lose their job.

There is this mantra that says it’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than asking for permission. This is one of those silly cliches we quote blindly handed down to us from Silicon Valley. No, it’s not better to ask for forgiveness after taking my money than for you to ask me if I want to buy what you are selling in the first place.

This is criminal

The truth is what happened here is unlawful seizure of property. In other words: theft.

Cassava and Econet inviting stricter regulation

The world over when stuff like what happened yesterday happens, regulators go to rule books and add a few extra pages. That this happened is justification enough that we need to rethink regulation about what happens to our data held by telcos. Just before last year’s election, mobile subscribers  got unsolicited messages from ZANU PF. Should such things happen?

The EcoSure incident is worse because someone moved money out of people’s accounts without their knowledge. It wasn’t just money being moved randomly, the money was going to the same company that we have trusted to keep our money. At least three regulators should say something about this:

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) as regulator of banking and similar services should make sure this never happens again. POTRAZ as regulator of telecoms companies should make sure telcos don’t abuse our personal data for their own benefit ever again. The Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC) should make sure no insurance company should ever impose itself on Zimbabweans again whether that insurance company has a relationship with a banking institution or not.

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Apparently, Econet’s network has been giving many people (not everyone but many people) a hard time since morning. This has naturally affected the processing of transactions on EcoCash. Affected customers have been experiencing intermittent network disruptions and in addition to failing to process transactions, some folks have been experiencing:

• Failure to request airtime balance
• Failure to move funds between wallet and bank and vice versa
• Failure to make calls
• Internet black out for minutes
• Complete black out of the network for minutes

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You may have been one of the customers who has been facing some challenges using Econet’s network today. Unfortunately the service disruption has meant that EcoCash isn’t working as advertised as well.

When Ecocash is down we loose 99% of our orders at Fresh in Box. We have lost orders now for 3 hours. When u cartel and control 90% of the nations pictures of goats you have to be responsible and make sure we can access our pictures of goats. U take enough fees for maintainance.

— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) March 4, 2019

Both the network operator and mobile money service are aware of this reality and they have issued out apologies for the disruptions.

Econet has also sent out the following message to subscribers:

Dear Customer. We sincerely apologise for the intermittent disruption in Voice, Data and EcoCash services. Our engineers are working flat out to restore service.

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