EcoCash hikes transaction charges

Dominant mobile money service provider, EcoCash, has announced a 10 percent upward review in transactional charges starting next month after obtaining the green light from regulatory authorities.

The company, which last reviewed its charges in January, said it will increase its charges effective September 19, 2021.

According to a price schedule published on the company’s website and social media pages at the weekend, EcoCash subscribers will soon be paying an extra ZW$1,37 when sending ZW$100 to a registered user, up from the previous charge ZW$8,01.

Consumers buying Zesa electricity tokens using EcoCash, or paying for goods valued at ZW$100, will pay an additional ZW$1,24 and ZW$1,20, up from ZW$7,76 and ZW$7,71 respectively from September 19 onwards.

The schedule reveals that there will, however, be no additional changes on all transactions above ZW$3 000, with users continuing to pay 1,91 percent for sending money and 1,85 percent for making bill and merchant payments.

But subscribers will now be required to part with ZW$18,37 more when transferring amounts between ZW$2 000 and ZW$2 499,00.

Transactions above ZW$500, as in previous tariffs reviews, will continue to attract the statutory two percent Intermediated Money Transfer Tax.

Although there was no immediate comment from the company on the price adjustment, the increase comes at a time the prices of goods and services in the country have been escalating despite the stability in the official foreign currency exchange rate since the beginning of the year.

The EcoCash tariff schedule made no reference to the ZW$5 000 daily transaction limit imposed on mobile money transactions in May 2020.

Although the monetary authorities last year promised to review the EcoCash weekly limit of ZW$35 000 “continuously, in line with the requirements and convenience of the transacting public”, there has so far not been any changes made to the transaction limits. The Chronicle