Source: EcoCash platform positioned for increased volumes – DailyNews Live
STAFF WRITER 12 August 2017
HARARE – Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited (EWZL) has moved to reassure
customers of its popular EcoCash service regarding the planned maintenance
work it has scheduled to carry out over the Heroes holiday weekend.
Econet this week announced that the company planned to carry out scheduled
maintenance work on its mobile money transfer platform from 10pm on
Saturday night up to 2pm the following day.
EWZL’s chief executive officer, Douglas Mboweni, said the scheduled
maintenance work would optimise the EcoCash platform to handle increased
volumes of transactions in the coming months in light of the increased
adoption of fintech (Finance and Technology) services and ahead of the
busy festive season.
“This is scheduled work we are carrying out on the EcoCash platform. Apart
from the EcoCash system, we routinely carry out maintenance and upgrade
work on our various network platforms to ensure optimal, robust
performance and to guarantee career-grade stability on our platforms”,
Mboweni said.
As the country’s cash challenges persist, the volume of EcoCash and
electronic bank transactions have shot up by close to 80 percent over the
past 18 months.
EcoCash’s general manager, Natalie Jabangwe, confirmed that the
maintenance work would position the platform to handle more customers and
more transactions going forward.
“The system optimisation is meant to enhance the system’s performance and
improve the customer experience”, said Jabangwe, adding that the decision
to carry out the maintenance work was made months back, and that the
company settled for the weekend of a public holiday to minimise any
inconvenience the maintenance work might cause to both their business and
consumer customers.
“The timing is all to do with trying to minimise any disruption this vital
work might cause to our valued customers, merchants and business
partners,” said Jabangwe, who reiterated that the maintenance work would
last for a maximum 16 hours, between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
EcoCash is the largest mobile money transacting platform among Zimbabwe’s
three mobile operators and is currently connected to 10 banks in the
country.
Its volume of transactions has grown rapidly over the past two years on
the back of liquidity challenges in Zimbabwe and the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe’s deliberate drive to promote electronic transactions and to
achieve financial inclusion among the previously unbanked.
Ahead of the maintenance work on Saturday night, Jabangwe called on
EcoCash users to carry out any urgent transactions they need to make
before Saturday evening or after Sunday afternoon to avoid any
inconvenience.
“We are encouraging our customers to make any critical transactions, such
as paying for their electricity token, airtime, buying fuel, groceries and
so forth, before Saturday night or after Sunday afternoon.”
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