Three million Zimbabweans are using EcoCash, a mobile money system on offer from local telecom firm Econet Wireless.

Econet Wireless says the number of users for its mobile money service has risen from 2 million subscribers, according to a figure recorded by the company for its financial year-end as of February.

Econet – whose mobile network has 8 million subscribers and is the largest in Zimbabwe – has said it is revamping the EcoCash platform to expand its capacity.

The expansion has been planned to also enable expat Zimbabweans in South Africa to send money back home using EcoCash.

“At the moment, EcoCash has about 3 million subscribers using the system to send and receive money and pay bills,” said Econet Wireless chief marketing officer, Isaiah Nyangari.

Econet launched EcoCash in September 2011.

Nyangari said the value of transactions that had been undertaken through EcoCash had significantly jumped to $2.2 billion since inception in September 2011.

“Transactions which were coming in through EcoCash have reached about 2.2 billion since it was launched,” Nyangari was quoted saying by the Financial Gazette newspaper.