By Lloyd Takawira
Following days of irregular services from Ecocash, NetOne the second largest mobile network provider in terms of subscriber base has taken a bold step to profit from Econet’s troubles with its mobile money service OneMoney by scrapping all transactional fees on its mobile money platform.
NetOne customers using the OneMoney service will only pay the statutory 2 percent tax on transactions until December 31.
“We’ve introduced zero rated transactions on all OneMoney transactions except the statutory 2 percent tax and card swiping charges. This means that when you send money, there’s no fees; when you receive money there’re no fees; when you purchase airtime, there’ no fees; when you cash-out, there’re no fees; and when you buy at the shop using the merchant code, there’re no fees,” NetOne CEO Mr Lazarus Muchenje told a news conference.
“People must not pay to get these services. It should be free,” Muchenje added.
The promotion launch, fees waiver is only valid until the end of the year.
However, EcoCash whose market share is over 90 percent of the mobile money market, has suffered a setback over the past few weeks over disruptions caused by its systems upgrade to its EcoCash mobile service.
EcoCash’s parent company Cassava Smartech CEO Eddie Chibi has however announced that normalcy has resumed on all their mobile money transactions. He however pleaded for patience from their customers as they clear pending transactions.
“I am pleased to say that transactions on our new EcoCash platform are now going through normally.
“We are however currently seized with clearing a backlog of transactions, particularly those arising from third-party integrations, and continue to ask for our customers’ patience as we work to clear this last hurdle,” said Chibi.
EcoCash carried out a major upgrade of its platform a week ago. The company says the new platform is more secure, faster, greater capacity and improved user experience.
