We all deserve better, and all these companies can do better…

So I’ll start this article with a little inside baseball; this article was originally supposed to be part of an “End Year of Report Card” series that we usually do at the end of each year and we’re working on for last year. However, as we wrote more about Econet (and dumped the whole concept for the end of 2024), we realized that most of the negatives and issues we had with Econet last year were less to do with Econet Wireless, but with EcoCash, whose last two months of 2024 were dismal and service has been weird and spotty even now in February of 2025. But as you see EcoCash slacking on the job, you can’t help but realize something, they only slack off this much partially because their competitors keep dropping the ball.

Now winding the clock back to November of 2024, I basically got to the point of having my fill with EcoCash. Due to owning a business heavily reliant on it, I experienced firsthand the detrimental of all their service issues late last year and early this year. Not only was I. Not able to receive payments from clients, or worse off, having to calm down clients whose funds “hung” mid-transfer and didn’t get to me, but I also shouldn’t transact online (a huge part of my business processes) and make transfers from the EcoCash card into other necessary financial accounts. Simply put, I’d based a huge part of my business on Ecocash and been left stuck and eventually losing money because of them. While I thankfully had backup measures in place and pulled myself out of the many pits Ecocash out me in (just look at the Twitter screenshots below where I kept asking their support pages for help), I essentially moved my business away from EcoCash completely using InnBucks and Zipit, and BancABC’s debit card as alternatives. But as much as I appreciate the improved service from all these providers (including much faster reversals on failed payments) I get why EcoCash still runs circles around them, and then gives comparatively terrible service in comparison EcoCash simply has broader, or at least wider reaching financial infrastructure when it comes to simple quick transactions, making it easier to access and (when it works), use than most of its competitors, while covering pretty much every area one might need to transact.

This isn’t surprising, EcoCash didn’t become the country’s unofficial third default mode of trade by accident after all. But this approach is also what makes it a nightmare to use. This leaves a massive opportunity for all its major competitors to either match Econet’s scale ( highly unlikely), or become better in their specific area in a way that makes them far more effective and makes customers prefer EcoCash a lot less. And since I specifically use three direct EcoCash competitors, I’ll cover them in the way I best understand them and point out how best they can improve.

Wallets and Debit cards

Let’s start with InnBucks, the company and service that’s come closest to actually dethroning Ecocash in a few key areas(while making One Money borderline irrelevant). Simbisa Brands basically hit the nail on the head creating the country’s arguably best mobile wallet originally masked as a customer loyalty program. And through a huge marketing push, widespread distribution due to Chicken Inn and other Simbisa outlets being everywhere, and key moves like remittance to and from South Africa, and it’s clear that EcoCash was right to feel threatened by what InnBucks was doing. That’s basically how EcoCash USD came to being rolled out so fast after all. However, InnBucks and other mobile wallets like One Money lose a whole market when it comes to EcoCash ‘s USD debit card. For many Zimbos this is how they pay for online subscriptions like Netflix or Microsoft Office, buy goods, and open a whole world of trade that EcoCash gladly takes transaction charges from, especially since opening a virtual Mastercard is one of the EASIEST processes you could ever have as an Ecocash user. InnBucks has at least made some leeway in this direction, with a ZimSwitch debit card that at least gets people depending more on InnBucks locally, but the ( admittedly smaller) market of online transactions still has a lot of users and even more potential for growth as more people keep becoming tech savvy. So should InnBucks have an international debit card, ideally yes, but since that may be harder, we look at the other side of this equation – banks and their prepaid debit cards. BancABC is the obvious culprit here, with a debit card I’ve loved using since 2022. I do however HATE getting money into it since it always requires a direct cash deposit at a BancABC center. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean a banking hall, as their partnership has proven to be pretty great too. Still, if my Netflix or Spotify needs a payment in the middle of the night I’m screwed, let alone if I need to pay for a business tool mid-project. It means fitting in a bank visit that may not be convenient, let alone possible depending on where you are, which makes it worse in the previously mentioned business setting that I use it in. 

But what if you could Zipit your InnBucks balance to your BancABC debit card? It sounds a little unconventional, but electronically refunding prepaid cards is not completely unheard of. Plus let’s face it, a lot of our international cards require slightly unconventional deals in order to work, like BancABC requiring Atlas Maras’ infrastructure for theirs or Ecocash’s deal with Mastercard. As such considering InnBucks Zipit to normal bank accounts already works, being linked directly to a card may not be entirely impossible, while it would open avenues for both the likes of InnBucks and BancABC to gain a cut from each of these transactions. And to be fair, I don’t think it’s an easy arrangement that can be sorted out tomorrow, but I would argue it’s the quickest way to meet Ecocash on that frontier, as again, InnBucks trying to land a Mastercard or Visa Partnership would probably take longer, and likewise for the likes of BancABC building a wallet solution quickly adapted by everyone else (not to mention the likely much higher costs associated with all this). But we’ve talked about the fairly cheaper approaches for consumers when it comes to handling these funds and transacting, now let’s talk about the option most Zimbos don’t always want to play with: more traditional bank accounts.

Traditional NOSTRO Bank Accounts

Now back to my three-pronged approach to match EcoCash, I didn’t exactly mention using any standard Nostro FCA account. And that’s not because I haven’t. In fact my experience with using them is exactly why I wouldn’t recommend them for anything that involves frequent but small transactions, because the transaction charges alone will be a NIGHTMARE. This was a revelation after having used both Stanbic and FBC’s cards which are both linked to the accounts I use from both banks. These were personal accounts, so it can’t be assumed that they charged any extra business account fees or rates, yet transaction fees are the single most reason I couldn’t for the life of me rely on any of them. After all, you could argue that traditional bank accounts and the infrastructure built around them are even better than EcoCash, as they can often be better integrated and have better service staff behind them. Yet due to said traditional banking infrastructure, they often just cost too much. The costs on paper may now seem much higher, being a slightly higher percentage or a few extra cents per dollar, but in my case where transactions are done frequently, that extra cost can literally eat my whole profit. So how do banks rectify this? Well if they are willing to be unconventional, a lower-cost, higher-volume Nostro account of sorts could be perfect. Something that can actually push people away from EcoCash reliance, especially if it has integrates other ideas we talked about like better integration with competing mobile wallets. It wouldn’t be perfect of course, but again, the goal here is making traditional accounts relevant again and competing with EcoCash and this might be enough.

As such, we get to a point where each of these EcoCash competitors just needs to do one or two things in order to better compete. Banks need to lower costs, white competing wallets need to team up with banks or specific products of theirs like debit cards all in order to meet EcoCash on every frontier and hopefully offer the same superior service that they already offer now. And again, back to the whole point of this article: if they can do that, then EcoCash itself will be forced to compete, something that’s better for consumers because ironically, when EcoCash and Econet in general are forced to compete that’s when we actually get great products. Just look at how Econet Wireless got their act in order ever since Starlink came onto the scene, or the aforementioned push EcoCash made against InnBucks. Even our country’s biggest monopoly can do things right when pushed, but even better than that, its competitors can potentially get a piece of the action, while we the consumers reap the best of all parties involved. Hopefully, enough important stakeholders will realize that soon. After all, just today both EcoCash and banking systems had their international trade systems go down. But based on what I’ve written and maybe even your own experiences who do you think will have their services back up and running the fastest, and not give their customers a hard time about it? Now, shouldn’t all of that be changed even just a little?

Related Stories: