The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has issued a directive to mobile money and other financial services providers to confirm the geolocation of access points and related devices including Point of Sale machines, mobile money agents and ATMs.

The country has become increasingly reliant upon mobile money and other digital finance platforms due to an ongoing cash crunch.

As a result banks have reinforced the deployment of Point of Sale machines and mobile money platforms in a bid to increase the number of mobile money agents.

RBZ has stated that digital finance service providers must openly avail "geolocation of access points and devices" to interested stakeholders.

"The bank urges and encourages all financial institutions, payment system providers and other stakeholders in the financial services sector to provide geolocation of all access points and devices which include Point of Sale devices, ATMs, mobile banking agents, merchants, branches and branch agents," said Joseph Mutepfa, deputy director for the financial markets division of the RBZ in a circular dated 17 January 2020.

The circular notes that "geolocation will entail the identification and publication of the exact real-world geographic locations" of the access points and devices.

Mutepfa added: "In this regard, institutions are urged to update their websites as well as other electronic platforms to make this information available to stakeholders."

Zimbabwe's central bank has stipulated additional guidelines for payment service providers, including mobile money and other digital finance services, which seek to "foster consumer protection for digital financial services customers including a mechanism for handling complaints relating to the provision of electronic payment" systems.