Dr John Mushayavanhu
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) confirms that it is in discussions with NPC International Payments Limited (NIPL), the international arm of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), about deploying Unified Payments Interface (UPI) technology as the foundation for Zimbabwe’s National Payments Digital Public Infrastructure.
The Reserve Bank is considering adopting and adapting the proven UPI’s technology and principles by tailoring them to Zimbabwe’s legal, regulatory, institutional and market environment.
The intended outcome is a Zimbabwean national payments ecosystem that would be deployed and operated as a domestic instant payment’s public infrastructure, much like roads, dams and power grids.
It would complement existing payment systems by providing common, real-time, low-cost instant payment rails through which regulated participants could connect.
Funds transfer
If Zimbabwe adopts and adapts the UPI technology’s instant payments system, the ordinary Zimbabwean will continue to be able to transfer funds between banks, mobile money platforms and other non-bank payment providers but with the following additional and game-changing benefits.
- A customer will have one payment address instead of different account numbers. Instead of remembering account numbers, branch codes and mobile numbers linked to different services, an economic agent would be known by a single identifier such as mobile number, e-mail address, national digital payment ID or business payment ID.
- Lower transaction costs as the payments will now be conducted on national infrastructure as opposed to a situation where each payment service provider builds its own.
Once costs of service delivery are lower for payment service providers, this will translate into lower transaction costs for ordinary Zimbabweans. The cost reduction will result in lower merchant fees and lower barriers of entry for smaller businesses.
- A superior payments experience using one QR code for all payments where a merchant can display a single QR code that is deployable for micro, small and medium enterprises.
This is in contrast to the existing situation where merchant payments are mostly via hardware (point-of-sale machines and cards).
On the UPI-like platform, QR codes will enable transactions at an account-to-account level with a card (physical or virtual) being an alternative channel and not a mandatory requirement to make instant payment as is the case now.
Customers will no longer need to have multiple access channels such as mobile apps/USSD codes to initiate payments, with one app providing them access to all their accounts/wallets and routing automated in the background.
- Greater financial inclusion wherein the marginalised or unbanked will be able to make or receive payments seamlessly and instantly, riding on the cost-effective infrastructure. The UPI will also enable much broader innovation by local fintechs.
Transaction fees
Despite technological advances, payments remain slow, fragmented and costly.
The proposed platform will complement, not replace, the country’s existing payment infrastructure.
It will provide common payment rails through which banks, mobile money operators, payment service providers, fintechs and other regulated participants can connect and transact in real time. Thus, improving the affordability of digital payments is one of the principal objectives of the initiative.
A shared national payment rail should reduce duplicated infrastructure, separate bilateral integrations and some of the intermediary costs associated with processing payments across different systems.
However, it would be premature to guarantee a particular reduction in customer charges before the system rollout.
In addition, the UPI technology stack also comes with the capability of enabling the integration of a data layer that is key for linking to centralised services, which is vital to financial inclusion.
How far advanced are the negotiations with NPCI International?
The engagement is at an advanced stage, but no final implementation agreement has yet been concluded.
The process remains subject to completion of the required procurement, technical, legal and institutional processes.
The Reserve Bank continues to work towards October 31, 2026 as the target for concluding an implementation agreement.
The target remains subject to successful completion of the required procurement, technical and institutional processes, and should not be interpreted as an unconditional deadline. Concluding an agreement would not mean that the system becomes immediately available to the public.
Implementation would still involve finalising the solution design, preparing the required infrastructure, integrating participating institutions and completing the relevant testing and acceptance processes before rollout.
Mandatory participation
The intended model is a shared national digital payments infrastructure that would be accessible to licensed participants on equal and transparent terms.
Broad participation is important to achieve meaningful interoperability and payment reach across the ecosystem.
However, the final participation model has not yet been approved.
It would, therefore, be premature to state that participation will be either mandatory or entirely voluntary.
Participation requirements, eligibility criteria, implementation timelines and any transitional arrangements will be determined through the final operating, participant and regulatory framework, following the necessary engagement with stakeholders. The proposed infrastructure is intended to support the RBZ’s existing QR-code interoperability framework, rather than replace it or establish a competing standard. The QR framework provides standards for interoperable QR payments, while the proposed national payment rail would provide the underlying routing and connectivity required to process transactions across participating institutions.
The proposed solution supports interoperable static and dynamic QR payments.
Detailed alignment with the bank’s March 2026 QR Code Payment Guidelines would form part of the technical design, integration and participant-certification processes.
One of the intended outcomes of an interoperable QR-payment framework is to allow merchants to accept payments using different banks and mobile money platforms through a single QR code.
Subject to the final technical design, certification and integration of participating institutions, a merchant should be able to display a single standards-compliant QR code that can accept payments initiated through different participating banks, mobile-money operators and other payment providers.
Dr John Mushayavanhu is Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. He was responding to questions from our reporter Debra Matabvu.
