EcoCash to launch remittances partnership with MTN Zambia

If you are looking for a way to send money from Zambia to Zimbabwe there’s a bit of good news.

According to an invitation that we’ve just received from the local mobile operator Econet Wireless, it will be launching a new remittance partnership between its mobile money service EcoCash and MTN Zambia’s MTN Mobile Money.

Econet hasn’t given any specific details as yet, but we are guessing that this will work in pretty much the same way as EcoCash Diaspora South Africa which allows South African users of the service to send money directly from one mobile money account to another.

MTN Mobile Money is MTN’s own mobile money service which works just like Ecocash and M-PESA. It provides the same type of convenience for its mobile subscribers and has managed to provide mobile financial service inclusion in the countries where it is active. It has also actively explored the opportunity of mobile money remittances. 

This will be the latest remittances partnership that Econet has entered into for its EcoCash Diaspora service. So far this partners list include major players in global remittances like MoneyGram, Western Union, and WorldRemit, as well as smaller outfits like Chitoro (which was snapped up by the Econet Group) and Afrocoin.

For Econet, the underlying value of these relationships has been the collaborative brilliance of working with entities that focus solely on the finer details of building a brand around remittances.

The EcoCash platform then provides a conveniently distributed network for recipients who benefit from the easy access to their money  from the large EcoCash agent network. The other advantage comes from capturing remittances in its monetary ecosystem.

A partnership with MTN Zambia comes with the same benefits and as a remittance service that works essentially like a transfer from one mobile money account to another, it also provides a layer of convenience for senders in Zambia.

It will be interesting to see if this EcoCash Diaspora/MTN Money team up opens the door for partnerships between EcoCash and MTN Mobile Money in other countries and for other value added services.