Chronicle Editor
EcoCash customers have welcomed the upward review of the mobile money platform’s transaction limits, saying this will bring much-needed convenience to ordinary users of the service across the country.
This week EcoCash published its revised transaction limits, showing that customers can now send up to ZW$350 000 a month over EcoCash, up from ZW$280 000. The notice also showed that the daily limit for sending money had been increased from ZW$10 000 to ZW$75 000.
In addition, customers can now send up to ZW$350 000 in a day, albeit in four batches of ZW$75 000 per transaction.
“I am happy that EcoCash has increased its ‘send money’ limits as the previous cap was now too low and frustrating, especially when sending over ZW$80 000 to someone. You had to send it in eight transactions, but now it’s much better as you now can only send twice,” said Clive Nhunzvi, an EcoCash user from Bindura.
EcoCash also announced that transaction limits for merchant payments (payments in supermarkets and for goods and services) have been increased by 50 percent, to ZW$600 000 per month — up from ZW$400 000 per month.
What this effectively means is that EcoCash customers who want to exhaust their ZW$600 000 monthly limit in one day can now do so by conducting four successive transactions of ZW$150 000. Before the latest increase, customers could only do a maximum merchant payment of ZW$50 000 per day.
“The new transaction limits are reflective of what is taking place in the market. Now we can buy goods or pay bills easily in a few transactions,” said Sandra Mambo, a schoolteacher based in Gweru.
Mrs Mambo, however, urged the authorities to regularly review transaction limits, in line with inflationary trends.
“I think sometimes the authorities take a bit too long to allow for upward reviews of transaction limits, and by the time they approve, most prices of goods and services would have jumped three or four more times, rendering the new limits inconsequential,” she added.
According to Zimstat, the Total Consumption Poverty Line (TCPL) for Zimbabwe stood at $27 297.53 per person in September 2022, translating to ZW$136 487.65 (about US$219,78) for a family of five.
“This means that an individual required that much to purchase both non-food and food items as at September 2022 in order not to be deemed poor. This represents an increase of 2,5 percent when compared to the August 2022 figure of $26 622.83,” said Zimstat.
Market watchers also hailed the latest mobile money transaction limits review, saying it is good news to mobile money users who have complained that the transaction limits were too low considering the pace at which the price of goods and services was going up in the country.
“Over the past few months most people were now hesitating to use mobile money due to the low transaction limits, which at times were very stifling. I am hoping that with these new transaction limits, people will be persuaded to continue using mobile money, which is critical for driving financial inclusion,” said economic commentator Francis Mukora.
Bongani Ndlovu