OneMoney reaches 1million subscribers

THE country`s second largest mobile network service provider by subscriber base, NetOne, says up to one million subscribers are now transacting through its OneMoney mobile money platform.

Chief executive officer, Mr Lazarus Muchenje, said the new product has the advantage of coming with a debit card, which gives customers convenience as it is linked to the country’s digital payments conference facility, Zimswitch.

“NetOne is so advanced that it has also got this swipe card, which means our subscribers have a choice of using their mobile phones or they can swipe using our debit card.

“This has seen us getting an overwhelming response of our subscribers wanting our OneMoney product.

“We started seven months ago and already we have one million subscribers,” he said.

NetOne launched the OneMoney mobile money service in October last year and has been making several marketing strategies to penetrate the mobile money market through various incentives.

Some of the incentives being offered include payment of school fees using OneMoney in which one gets refunded the money back, and the launch of the OneMoney debit card.

NetOne was the first mobile operator to launch a mobile money service, OneWallet, which, however, failed to lure many subscribers.

The market has largely been dominated by the country’s biggest mobile network operator by subscriber base, Econet, which enjoys more percentage of mobile money transactions as of November last year.

Telecel also entered the mobile money market with Telecash and has also enjoyed relative success.

A report by the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), shows the total number of active mobile money subscriptions increased by 42,5 per cent to 4,7 million in 2017 from 3,3 million in 2016.