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Happiness Zengeni Business Editor

Mobile money expert and chief executive of TransferTo Eric Barbier has said digitising currency as a national agenda should be at the forefront of the dialogue to alleviate cash shortages.TransferTo is a B2B mobile payment network, interconnecting financial institutions and mobile operators globally. Thousands of leading companies, including Vodafone’s M-Pesa, Tigo Money, Orange, Western Union, PayPal and Xoom rely on TransferTo’s Mobile Money and Airtime Hub.

Mr Barbier’s remarks come as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is set to introduce bond notes as part of measures to motivate exporters to sale more of their products outside the country to earn foreign currency and to ease liquidity challenges.

In his analysis Mr Barbier said the macro-economic factors at play have highlighted the potential for the emergence of a cashless society.

“Should we be investing in physical currency, with new forms of digital finance at hand? The previous crisis (which peaked in 2008) has instilled a distrust of traditional financial institutions and issuing any form of physical currency triggers old fears and cash hoarding, which puts the liquidity of the monetary system at risk.”

He added that while mobile money services are currently private sector-led, such as EcoCash, the central bank could consider digital financial strategy with a public-private dialogue on a mobile money ecosystem. This should serve both the unbanked and the banked and can be developed as a controlled and secure environment through regulation.

Financial innovation, to which mobile money services fall under, is a key pillar of Zimbabwe’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2016-2020.

Mr Barbier said Zimbabwe can look to Peru or Ecuador for learnings, where the creation of a national mobile wallet system has been driven by the respective central banks in order to create a fully interoperable mobile money ecosystem.

“By focusing on digitising money and moving to a digital economy as a macro-objective, Zimbabwe has a chance to bypass Kenya’s fame of M-Pesa and Mobile Money to lead African financial innovation. The benefits are numerous.”

He added that mobile money being applied across the nation will reduce reliance on cash, shortage of cash and costs associated with cash production, cash management, cash movement and cash security.

Cost of cash can be redirected into social and economic improvement programmes such as financial literacy, financial inclusion, accelerating entrepreneurship and intra-regional trade.