How to Swipe into Ecocash from ANY Bank Account

While most of the economy in Zimbabwe has learned that the most convenient way to transact nowadays is through Ecocash some banks are still rigid. A good number of Zimbabwean banks are now linked to Ecocash (or at least offer the service) and this makes it easy to move money to Ecocash from your bank and then make payments in those downtown shops.

Unfortunately due to the passive resistance that some banks do when it comes to bank – ecocash linking, sometimes it takes forever to get on board. You’ll find your bank telling you that you’re on a waiting list for the link-to-Ecocash service, or that they lost your application or that Ecocash is delaying. Well, all that doesn’t matter anymore. When you learn how to Swipe into Ecocash from any bank account your life will get better. Barclays and Standard Chartered Bank, problem solved! (Happy dance time).

A new exciting product “Swipe into EcoCash” was launched today at the Meikles hotel, Harare before a big audience which include members of the public, EcoCash team, EcoCash agents, Econet Zimbabwe team and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) delegates led by the director of national payments, Josephat Mutepfa.

The product presentation was done by the General Manager, Ecocash, Natalie Jabangwe-Morris. She outlined the reason behind the new service as explained earlier.

The truth is the other banks were being difficult for one reason or another. Ecocash has found a way to make sure that their customers still get the convenience that other bankers get. I wonder if this will motivate these banks to integrate with Ecocash in the near future. At the end of the day, Ecocash is a financial transaction mammoth right now. In the recently published regulator report, Ecocash facilitates +95% of Zimbabwean mobile money transactions.

Yet another exciting innovation ‘Swipe into EcoCash’. With any ZimSwitch enabled card you will be able to Swipe into your EcoCash #justswipepic.twitter.com/uaI1TiWF8z

— EcoCash Zimbabwe (@EcoCashZW) October 25, 2017

I don’t know about you but my best friend is one of those guys who always made sure I know that he has a standard Chartered bank account and cash isn’t really a problem for them. It gets really entertaining when it’s now a case of him trying to make an Ecocash payment but all his money is in the bank. The conversation would always end with a Zipit transaction to my account while I Ecocash him. Problem is that somehow in this cases it always takes forever for the Zipit transaction instead of the seconds it takes in other cases. Are these boujee bank accounts also anti-Zipit?

How to Swipe into Ecocash from Any Bank

The process is very easy. The starting point is that Ecocash agents are going to be given POS machines and some agents were on hand to collect POS terminals at the venue. Miss Jabangwe-Morris said that 5,000 new POS terminals are being rolled out to ensure this product is always within reach.

All you need is a ZimSwitch linked bank card. Follow the steps below:

• Visit any outlet with a Steward bank POS machine
• Swipe your bank card
• Confirm your personal details e.g. name and surname
• Enter amount to swipe-in
• Enter bank card PIN (not EcoCash PIN)
• Receive confirmation SMS

It may not be as big a deal. Not too many people who will benefit from this because of a lack of banking service integrations with Ecocash. I’m sure even bankers with linked accounts can benefit from this when the banking services are down. This is because sometimes banking services are down but the system is allowing for swiping. So one can easily just swipe into their Ecocash accounts.

Ecocash and their desire to be at every point of our daily living can sometimes get scary. I usually calm down because I benefit from most of the services. Sci-fi fans like me will soon believe that Econet wants to be Skynet. Watch this space, there will be an AI project from Econet one of these days. These guys are sometimes the guardians of the belief in continuous improvement. #kaizenYOU