By Patience Rashai
Mobile money transfer provider, NetOne says it has plans afoot to improve its market share and lure transacting public towards their One Money facility for transacting.
Speaking on this notion, NetOne Chief Executive Officer, Lazarus Muchenje announced this Monday that subscribers on Netone’s OneMoney service will not be charged for any transactions, but will only pay the statutory 2% tax on transactions until December 31, a move meant to tilt customers’ preferred network of choice due to such competitive rates.
“We have introduced zero-rated transactions on all OneMoney transactions except the statutory 2% tax and card swiping charges. This means that when you send money, there are no fees; when you receive money there are no fees; when you purchase airtime, there are no fees; when you cash-out, there are no fees; and when you buy at the shop using the merchant code, there still are no fees,” said Muchenje.
Commenting on this move, economic analyst, Tawanda Mutambirwa said this move would likely see NetOne penetrating the mobile money market which Ecocash has monopolised for some time now due to meagre competition.
“Currently EcoCash has a lion’s share of the mobile money market, with 94.4% of the market share with Netone’s One Money and Telecel’s Telecash having 4.8% and 0.8% market share respectively. Given EcoCash’s outsized market share, in the event of any technical glitch within their network, the public will crumble as it places the transacting public at their mercy.
He added that if Ecocash goes down either because of system failure or intentionally for political purposes, the impact would be huge.
“With the cash crisis and growing importance of mobile money transactions many businesses and individuals would not be able to transact and this could lead to chaos. Hence such power should not be in the hands of one corporation.
“In order to expedite this, One Money should not only target schemes for the public. Approach retailers as well, big corporates dealing with money (ZESA, water bill payments, clinics) and offer them merchant codes, so as to entice the transacting public,” he added.
