Ecocash South Africa remittance platform near launch

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, Douglas Mberi

THE long awaited launch of direct EcoCash Remittance from South Africa is set for the beginning of October now that Econet and its partners have received all the necessary approvals from the South African authorities and are nearing completion of a successful soft launch.
In an update, Econet said it has been working with its South African partners since the beginning of August on a two hundred customer “soft launch” of the new direct to EcoCash remittance service; training registration agents, enabling and verifying the interlinked systems and ensuring regulatory compliance of the end to end process.
Econet has partnered its massively popular EcoCash service with a South African company called Flash Mobile Vending, a subsidiary of retail giant Pepkor, whose mobile vending solution is used by more than 60,000 informal sector small business shop owners throughout South Africa.
In much the same way that EcoCash has enabled agents in the most far flung corners of Zimbabwe, Flash shop owners are spread throughout the territory of South Africa; operating from locations convenient to the vast majority of the Zimbabwean Diaspora who are the source of vital remittances supporting loved ones here in Zimbabwe.
Flash’s vast footprint of shop owners, easily spotted by virtue of their distinctive “green cow” logo, will effectively act as EcoCash agents for remittance “cash-in” transactions. In addition, Flash plans to mobilize all PEP and PEPcell stores across South Africa to perform registrations and accept remittance “cash-in”. In essence, the partnership with Flash extends EcoCash Zimbabwe’s agent footprint from Beitbridge to Cape Town and all parts in between.
“We are entering a very exciting count down to the commercial launch of EcoCash Remittance South Africa. In less than three weeks Zimbabweans right across South Africa will finally be able to send money home to loved ones securely, cheaply, and in a matter of seconds,” said Econet Wireless Zimbabwe chief executive officer Douglas Mboweni. “This has taken a long time to put in place but we are almost there. It will be the biggest thing that has happened to EcoCash since it was first launched.”
Mr Mboweni said the service will only be available to Zimbabweans who have an Econet Wireless South Africa SIM card, known as “Call Home” and which is powered by Cell C. Almost a million Zimbabweans currently use Call Home which has been designed to satisfy the telecommunications and mobile financial service needs of African immigrants in South Africa.
He said EcoCash remittances have so many unique advantages to any other form of remittance. To begin with, money goes from shop to phone in a matter of seconds. You can send as little as R50. It will also be very cheap compared to other forms of remittance because Econet and Flash are volume players.
“Until now people have to wait until pay day to send money home, now they can send money any time and in very small amounts. This will boost the flow of money from remittances,” said Mr Mboweni.
Meanwhile Mr Mboweni said EcoCash has now made it possible for Zimbabweans to remit money home from virtually any country in the world.
“Over the last 12 months, our teams have created partnerships with Money transfer agencies such as MoneyGram, Western Union, World Remit, and Chitoro. We have also added international banks. This has made EcoCash the preferred way to send any amount of money to Zimbabwe, quickly, safely and cheaply.”
International remittances are extremely important to the Zimbabwe economy. Money coming from Zimbabweans working abroad is the single largest source of currency for the economy. Making it easier to send money home is therefore important to easing liquidity problems.
The Econet CEO said his company was planning a massive promotional campaign to get Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to send more money home to their relatives using EcoCash.