THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is moving to integrate the national database of the Civil Registry Department with mobile financial services subscriber records — a bold crackdown aimed at tightening identity verification, curbing fraud and reducing illicit financial flows in the country’s booming digital payments ecosystem.
In an interview, Dr Mushayavanhu said the measures introduced in the 2026 Monetary Policy Statement will strengthen the integrity of digital financial services.
“Mobile money operators are required to implement robust, multi-layered KYC (Know Your Customer) frameworks, including real-time validation of national ID numbers through the Civil Registry, biometric matching and secure digital storage of records,” Dr Mushayavanhu said.
“The validation with the Civil Registry is already in place. The RBZ is also working with relevant State agencies towards 100 percent Civil Registry integration for all mobile financial services to enable secure, API-driven identity authentication and expects strengthened biometric verification to reduce impersonation risks.”
Dr Mushayavanhu said the objective of the exercise is to protect consumers and stabilise the digital payments ecosystem.
“The intervention mitigates financial crime risks — fraud, impersonation, illicit flows — monetary risks such as artificial inflation of transaction volumes, speculative trading, and abuse of small-value transactions, and market conduct risks including agent-driven irregular registrations and duplicate or ghost wallets,” he added.
“The objective is to protect consumers, enhance transparency and stabilise the digital payments ecosystem.”
Dr Mushayavanhu warned that penalties and sanctions will apply to non-compliant mobile money operators.
“The RBZ will deploy enhanced compliance reporting, targeted inspections, advanced transaction analytics and mandatory deregistration of unverified lines and accounts where necessary,” he said.
“Administrative penalties and sanctions will apply for non-compliance. Consumer protection oversight will also be strengthened to ensure proper onboarding, agent compliance, and customer communication.
“The bank has set a deadline of June 30, 2026, by which mobile money operators should have complied, and we expect full compliance by all operators.”
The RBZ Governor Dr John Mushayavanhu
The proposed integration will enable biometric and national identification verification of mobile money users by cross-checking subscriber details held by mobile network service providers and mobile money platforms against official Civil Registry records.
This follows a central bank directive ordering all mobile money operators to de-register accounts that cannot be verified against valid national identification documents by the end of June.
Presenting the 2026 Monetary Policy Statement, RBZ Governor Dr John Mushayavanhu instructed mobile money operators to urgently clean and authenticate their subscriber databases.
He said operators must ensure that identification details used to register mobile money accounts correspond with the information held by both telecommunications companies and the Civil Registry Department.
While mobile money operators have complied with a 2021 regulatory directive enforcing a strict “one line, one wallet” policy — which limits each SIM card to a single mobile money account — inconsistencies still exist within subscriber databases of mobile network operators.
According to the central bank, discrepancies in SIM card registration — including duplicated identities, ghost lines and mismatched subscriber details — continue to pose systemic risks within the digital financial system.
Such irregularities, the RBZ noted, can enable fraud, identity manipulation and other forms of financial crime, including illicit financial flows.
By integrating Civil Registry records with telecommunications and mobile money databases, authorities expect to create a more secure and transparent digital financial ecosystem, where each mobile money account is directly linked to a verifiable national identity.
The move is also expected to strengthen regulatory oversight of the rapidly expanding mobile money sector, which plays a critical role in Zimbabwe’s payment systems by facilitating everyday transactions, remittances and financial inclusion.
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