Ecocash Closes More Agent Lines, Now Has A Compliance Team

It seems Ecocash is not done with agents and those who use their lines. Yesterday several agents reported that their lines had been closed and were no longer working. In the process of trying to get Ecocash to reopen lines, people learned that Ecocash, working in tandem with the RBZ is still very much on the case of black market dealers using their lines to trade foreign currency.

Those who had their lines closed got in touch with Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe Limited (Ecocash) and they responded with the following message:

Good day team.

Please note all the other lines that were owned by the agents who were barred in September have been blocked as well pending finalization of the investigations by RBZ. The lines were barred today 21 October 2019 under reference “Under investigation. Ref EcoCash Compliance. Will await RBZ to complete investigations and call them once we have received feedback from RBZ.

On behalf of compliance team

Text of a message sent to those whose lines had been closed

Its possible Ecocash has always had a compliance team before all this but this is the first time we are hearing of it. In any case, it seems the compliance team is much more prominent in the aftermath of the RBZ taking the drastic action of banning cash out and cash in before relenting to public pressure and lifting the ban.

It’s also clear that this is an ongoing exercise and not just a limited number of lines being closed. Various “agents” from different places reported their lines being closed in different locations which means some sort of criteria is being used to weed out suspected dealers.