InnBucks introduces swipe card, no more forced withdrawals to pay merchants

Remember the days when you had to go to your mobile money provider’s USSD platform and go through the steps to pay at a grocery store?

Luckily, somewhere along the way, a solution was found that streamlined the process. Now, all you have to do is provide your phone number, and all you have to do is enter your PIN, and you’re on your way with the jumbo-sized soya nyama bag.

Not all mobile money players have this solution generally available.

On the ground, you will see that many merchants only accept EcoCash with this solution. Despite other players like InnBucks gaining ground, many merchants only accept EcoCash.

Once the money is in your InnBucks account, you will be prompted to find an agent, withdraw the money, and come back with cash.

I believe InnBucks is trying to solve that with the …

InnBucks Swipe Card

InnBucks recently introduced a local debit card. The card is Zimswitch-enabled, so you can swipe, tap-and-go and access ATMs.

So if you have the card, you don’t have to deal with merchants who don’t accept InnBucks. If they have a POS machine and accept swipe payments, you can pay with the card directly from your InnBucks account.

Please note, it is currently only for local transactions. You cannot travel with the card or use it for international transactions yet.

InnBucks says they are working on a Visa card. It also follows that there is no virtual card option yet.

So no Netflix or Spotify payments for the time being.

Costs

You’ll recall that InnBucks now has a subscription model where you pay $1 per month for unlimited transactions. So when you swipe on an InnBucks POS, it’s free.

However, you will probably mostly be dealing with non-InnBucks POS machines. On these Zimswitch machines, you will pay a 2.6% fee when you swipe. Zimswitch takes 0.6% and Mthuli takes its 2%.

We forget, but Mthuli is really the mafia. He makes more money from these transactions than the service providers combined. This is not how taxation should work. Mobile money operators build the wallets and agent networks, and Zimswitch allows transfers between bank accounts and wallets. Then Mthuli comes in and takes the biggest cut of the revenue.

Either way, you’ll need to shell out $3.50 to get the InnBucks Swipe card. InnBucks agents at Simbisa locations will help you out.

Mobile money cards

For some reason, mobile money cards aren’t as popular as they should be. EcoCash has had a card for a long time, but in my own circles, only a few have it. I use mine for Spotify payments, and it seems that most of those who have these cards need them for exactly that: online payments.

My bank issued prepaid USD card lost to mobile money cards. If it is not EcoCash, I also have O’mari card on standby. Yet I have never used these cards for local transactions.

I have indeed never seen anyone swipe an EcoCash card in a supermarket. Yet there is almost always someone who pays with EcoCash. I don’t know why that is.

Could the low acceptance have something to do with the fact that users have to pay to get these cards? You saw that the InnBucks card costs $3.50. Maybe that’s why people don’t want them as much.

InnBucks hopes this won’t be the case with their swipe card.