Kudzanai Gerede, Companies and Market Editor 
NDARAMA, a local fintech company, has launched a digital platform that links tokenised real-world assets with USD lending delivered through mobile money.
Tokenised assets are digital representations of real-world items like real estate, art or commodities recorded as digital tokens on a blockchain, allowing for fractional ownership, easier trading, and automated management via smart contracts.
They fundamentally transform ownership into secure, tradable digital units. Tokenised assets remain novel in most parts of Africa, more so in Zimbabwe.
Under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe within its regulatory sandbox, Ndarama seeks to broaden access to investment and credit opportunities.
Users can invest small amounts into tokenised real-world assets such as property, use those tokens as collateral, and receive USD loans disbursed via familiar mobile-money platforms like EcoCash and OneMoney ― without interacting with cryptocurrency at any point.
“This isn’t crypto for crypto users,” Ndarama founder and chief executive John-Paul Matenga said.
“It’s blockchain infrastructure quietly working in the background to deliver real financial utility ― real dollars, real assets, real protection ― through systems people already trust and understand.”
This financial proposition seeks to ease access to finance for ordinary Zimbabweans without collateral.
By using programmable collateral and automation, Ndarama eliminates much of the overhead that forces lenders to charge exploitative rates, such as manual underwriting, branch networks, legal enforcement, and collection agencies.
As a result, Ndarama enables ethical lending with no hidden fees, or penalty interest, balloon payments, and upfront terms.
“This represents a 50-65 percent reduction in borrowing costs, passed directly to users,”
“Unlike many tokenisation projects designed for wealthy crypto investors in developed markets, Ndarama is built for students, informal workers, small businesses, first-time investors and communities excluded from traditional collateral systems,” added Matenga.
Analysts at London-based Standard Chartered last year projected global tokenised real-world assets to reach US$2 trillion by 2028, not including stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged to the price of an existing currency.
Virtual assets have largely been a grey area in Zimbabwe, primarily due to regulatory gaps, the absence of unified definitions, and limited technical literacy.
These issues have created an environment conducive to illicit activities.
Consequently, challenges such as compromised consumer protection, difficulties in taxation, and threats to financial stability have arisen, compelling regulators to continually adapt and respond to the rapidly evolving, borderless nature of these technologies.
However, the recently gazetted Finance Act has given virtual assets the much-needed backing in Zimbabwe.
