The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has sent out an order to Zimbabwe’s largest mobile wallet operator, Ecocash to shut down some of its agents after giving a similar instructions to banks Banks last week. The order instructs Ecocash to freeze the agent lines of all traders whose transactions exceed $100 000 ZWL per month until certain KYC activities are completed.

The full statement from Ecocash on the issue:

Notice to Customers & Agents
EcoCash wishes to advise that we received a directive from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Financial Intelligence Unit of Zimbabwe to the effect that all Agents with transaction limits of over ZWL$100.000 per month should have their accounts frozen with immediate effect, except for

– Banking Institutions

– Bureaux de change

– Listed Companies (Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Listed Companies)

– International Organisations

– Microfinance Institutions

– Government and Quasi-government Institutions

This directive will impact Agent business operations as Agents will not have access to their float funds as well as liquidations. EcoCash was not consulted on this directive. We, therefore, did not provide any input into it The directive will not only impact the affected Agents but also the transactions they do with over 53,000 other EcoCash Agents and consequently our 11 million customers countrywide who rely on the Agent network.
Agent-reliant transactions to be affected are;

Cash-in,

Cash-out,

Airtime sales,

Customer registrations,

Prepaid electricity sales,

Kindly note that all other EcoCash transactions are not affected by this directive. We will provide you with an update on any further developments.
EcoCash
Cassava Smartech