There has been a growing chorus of voices urging people to switch to OneMoney EcoCash’s rival. This follows two weeks of frustrations as EcoCash continues to spew errors whenever one attempts to transact using the service.

It appears illegal foreign currency dealers have also had enough of EcoCash’s antics which to be honest have always been there even before the major upgrade that has upended people’s lives.

One reason why people stick with EcoCash despite all the downtime and errors is because of its market share and inertia. People will only move to another rival service such as OneMoney if there can easily use it to pay for essential services and send money to their friends.

Right now there are not that many agents on OneMoney and a lot of ordinary retailers and vendors don’t yet accept it but things on the ground appear to show this as changing.

Viral Message on WhatsApp

There has been a viral message on WhatsApp urging people to register for OneMoney as most money changers are contemplating making the switch:

Important Notice
The ecocash system has been problematic and very expensive for a few months now. Therefore we are migrating to Netone and we will soon be doing most trading on the NetOneMoney platform. Kindly register a netone line so that you dont get left behind
Right now we have money hanging on the ecocash platform. We will update you on our rate of the day as soon as the money clears.
A message doing rounds in illegal forex groups and on WhatsApp in general

Will this change anything?

One reason why people use EcoCash is because money-changers use it to buy and sell forex. The problem for money changers is that there has been a decline in the number of people wanting to sell them forex using EcoCash as spending the proceeds proving difficult for most people.

Also, money changers who double as EcoCash Agents have grievances of their own with the service. Apparently, there have been issues with commissions, lines being blocked on a whim and the fact that EcoCash is no longer issuing agent lines and you have to rent one at $50 per month.

In contrast, OneMOney is part of the ZIMSWITCH platform and comes with a debit card. Failed transactions are extremely rare. Most importantly it is relatively trivial to get an agent line officially without paying anyone.