Agents offering services under Econet Wireless’ mobile money platform, EcoCash, are raking in the profits on the back of increased usage of the platform which now has 4.5 million active accounts.

EcoCash competes with Telecel Zimbabwe’s Telecash mobile money platform and state owned NetOne, which runs the One Wallet offering. Several banks in Zimbabwe also run mobile money platforms in the country.

Information seen by ITWeb Africa shows that agents for EcoCash are raking in average profits of around $700 a month for high volume areas that have informal traders and farmers undertaking transactions.

“Farmers mostly do cash ins as they try to safeguard their money after selling their produce at the markets in Harare’s Mbare suburb.

"Cash-outs have also risen when ordinary people want to purchase goods from the informal markets and this has driven volumes for us,” said one agent.

In the mostly informal and farmers market dominated such as Harare’s Mbare, which is considered one of the areas with high transaction volumes for mobile money platforms in Harare – profits for EcoCash agents are averaging $700.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe says nearly $500,000 worth of financial transactions were undertaken in the country using mobile and internet based platforms during the month of April.

Local media reports quoted Natalie Jabangwe, the head of EcoCash saying EcoCash mobile money agents had surged to 20,000 since inception in September 2011.

Mobile money wallets held with the platform had also surged to 4.5 million while savings accounts on EcoCash now topped 3.5 million.

Most of the mobile money agents supplement their income through mobile phone charging for the farmers as well as installing mobile applications.

Talkmore Katuruza who works at his uncle’s EcoCash booth and is making brisk business installing applications for farmers on their cellphones while a nearby booth sells new and second hand entry point smartphones.

“You have to throw in everything and the demand for applications such as WhatsApp for farmers who would have bought their cellphones after selling their produce at the markets is boosting our earnings. After attending to their EcoCash transactions I sometimes have to persuade them to also install applications,” said Katuruza.