MasterCard’s Move Into Zimbabwe Mobile Money Market

MasterCard solidified its commitment to the cross-global payments market on Tuesday (March 3) when it released a press release to announce its partnership with Zimbabwe’s Steward Bank. The move aims to bring remittance services to more than 1.5 million account holders — allowing its customers to receive money from those outside the region.

This initiative is being led through HomeSend network, which will act as a money transfer hub between MasterCard, eServGlobal and BICS. Steward Bank, which is known in the industry as the country’s “most innovative bank” is the first of its kind in the region to join this global network.

“Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are increasingly playing an important role in the development of the country through remittances. However, the cost of transferring money to the country was high until now, and a large proportion of remittances were sent informally in cash,” Charlton Goredema, MasterCard’s VP of Southern Africa and Emerging Markets, said in the release. “Funds sent and received via informal channels are vulnerable to theft, loss and shrinkage due to charges levied for transporting cash between countries.”

Through this partnership, Steward Bank will also be able to work with its sister company, EcoCash, to connect to the HomeSend network to enable 4 million EcoCash mobile money customers to tap into their mobile money wallets to receive cross-border remittances. This can be used to pay bills, pay merchants and to send or receive money. The partnership also allow consumers with MasterCard Debit Companion cards to connect the accounts to a EcoCash wallet that can be later taken out from an ATM.

“Remittances are an important source of foreign currency into Zimbabwe, amounting to $1.8 billion in 2013 received via transfer agencies and formal channels,” Lance Mambondiani, Acting CEO of Steward Bank, said. “Thousands of under-banked Zimbabwean families are dependent on funds sent by relatives working in other countries. Now, through the partnership with MasterCard and HomeSend, these citizens have access to affordable, convenient money transfer services.”

MasterCard announced this partnership at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where several similar partnerships into the mobile money market have been announced. Earlier in the week (March 2), Visa announced it was extending its presence into the African mobile money market through a new partnership with Bharti Airtel to bring mobile payments services to seven additional countries. Mobile commerce investments in Africa, in particular, have been increasingly attractive to payments and commerce companies due to the fact that much of the population has mobile phones but not easy access to banks.