ZIMBABWE:NetOne gears up for mobile money growth

Zimbabwe's state owned mobile operator, NetOne, is expecting mobile money to develop further in the country and says its One Wallet platform is already inter-operational.

NetOne was among the first mobile companies in Zimbabwe to launch a mobile money platform. However, its One Wallet offering has been overtaken by Econet's EcoCash in terms of prominence, while Telecel Zimbabwe's Telecash is also making headway in the market.

Rosemary Chamunorwa, a senior executive at NetOne said this week that her company was gearing up for rapid developments in the mobile money space."We expect mobile money to advance further," she said.

"We are already inter-operational. It is important for the regulator to bring up (these) issues on how to serve the market and encourage interoperability," she added.Such advancements would include inter-operability to allow mobile money wallets to send money to those platforms run by rival operators. Chamunorwa said NetOne had already started to allow cross network transfers using its mobile money platform.

NetOne has now overtaken Telecel Zimbabwe in terms of subscriber numbers, with spokesperson John Nyashanu saying in Victoria Falls a few weeks ago that the company now has 3.2 million subscribers on its mobile network.

Telecel has around 2.5 million network users while market leader Econet Wireless says it has around 9 million subscribers and more than 3 million registered mobile money users.

SOURCE:ITWEBAFRICA