Ecocash performance hit by 7 regulatory directives over past six months

The performance of Zimbabwe’s largest mobile money platform, Ecocash, has severely been impacted on by seven regulatory directives that have been issued during the past six months, its parent company Cassava Smartech said in trading update.

Its share on the national payments system, for example, fell from 30 to 19 percent by value.

The company said the directives that impacted on Ecocash are:

1. 21st April 2020 – Reduction in daily, monthly and transactional limits,
2. 4th May 2020 – Suspension of Agents with transactions above ZW$100,000 and requirement for their re-registration,
3. 4th June 2020 – Suspension of Agent to Agent transactions,
4. 26th June 2020 – Directive to integrate to Zimswitch, in line with SI 80, by 30 September 2020,
5. 27th June 2020 – Suspension of some Ecocash User Categories and Functions,
6. 25th August 2020 – Revision of mobile money limits and permissible transactions,
7. 25th August 2020 – Ban of use of multiple wallets by individuals effective 8 September 2020.

The company said it continues to comply with all the regulatory directives as they are issued.

The government has cracked down on Ecocash after discovering that it was creating “phantom money” and fuelling the black market.

The crackdown started in April after authorities discovered that the value of Ecocash transactions in February alone was three times that of all 13 commercial banks in the country.

The crackdown on Ecocash has also resulted in the delay in the publishing of the parent company’s annual report for the financial year ending February 2020.

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