Mobile money transactions drop 23pc
THE total number of mobile money transactions processed in 2020 went down by 23 percent to record $1,5 billion from $1,96 billion recorded in 2019 as active mobile money subscriptions also took a dip.
Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) attributed the declines to the banning of mobile money agent lines.
During the period under review, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) banned agent lines which mainly affected Ecocash as it had the highest number of agent lines.
“As a result, Cash-In transactions and Cash-Out transactions are no longer being effected,” reads part of the Potraz sector performance report for 2020.
According to the report Ecocash maintained its dominance on both number of transactions as well as value of transactions at 97 percent and 95,7 percent respectively.
OneMoney accounted for 4 percent of value of transactions while the remaining 0,11 percent was for Telecash.
Active mobile money subscriptions went down by 11 percent compared to prior year.
The total number of active mobile money subscriptions was 6,495,682 as at 31 December 2020, representing a decline of 11,4 percent from 7,334,639 as at 31 December 2019.
Since 2016, active mobile money subscriptions had always been on an upward trend until 2020 when the RBZ banned agent lines.
In 2016, the country had 3,3 million active mobile money subscribers and more than doubled to 7,3 million before falling to 6,5 million in 2020.
However, the regulator expects growth to continue going forward.