There is increasing uptake of technology based banking platforms in Zimbabwe, with Pan African banking group, Ecobank, saying most transactions are now being carried out on retail internet banking, ATMs and Point of Sale devices.

Most Zimbabwean banks are leveraging on technology and internet based banking platforms to reduce costs and bring greater convenience to the banking population.

Ecobank this week partnered with South African telco, MTN in a deal that will enable MTN mobile money users to withdraw money from the bank’s ATMs in some African countries.

Ecobank managing director in Zimbabwe, Daniel Sackey, has said that the group plans to invest in technology based platforms during the current financial year.

“This year, growth focus will gradually move away from brick and mortar expansion... Greater focus will be on improving the customer experience through process automation and stabilisation of technology platforms for optimal system uptime,” he said.

The Zimbabwe unit of Ecobank had significantly raised its profit before tax position from the $0.75 million recorded in 2012 to $2.4 million at the end of December last year.

Sackey added that “at least two thirds of routine customer transactions volumes” that were previously undertaken in banking halls are now “being completed on ATMs, POS, Retail Internet Banking and corporate internet banking”.

Bankers Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ) president, George Guvamatanga told Zimbabwean parliamentarians that banks want the government to regulate mobile money services.

While telecom companies in Zimbabwe have increasingly forayed into mobile money transfer and mobile banking, the banks have now started to take mobile and internet banking seriously.

“We want legislation that takes away some monopolistic and restrictive tendencies that we are seeing. We want interoperability because it would make it more convenient for people to get the (banking) services,” said Guvamatanga.