Last week, Barclays announced a money transfer service called Cashsend that lets the bank’s customers with debit cards send money to anyone in Zimbabwe via an ATM. The service is one of the most innovative to come out of a bank in Zimbabwe and rivals other money transfer services on the market like EcoCash, Western Union and TextaCash.
According to the company’s adverts in the press, to send money, a customer just needs to select the appropriate ATM menu, send it through and then communicate a voucher and PIN to the recipient. The recipient then visits any Barclays ATM and makes the withdrawal and they don’t need to be a Barclays customer or to have a bank card to do this.
The huge convenience of Cashsend is that sending the money doesn’t require one to go into a Barclays branch, which means they can do it outside of banking hours. The limitation we can notice is that the recipient can only withdraw money at Barclays ATMs. There’s only 45 of them in Zimbabwe! And since this is an ATM technology/service, expansion is by way of more ATMs which may be more resource intensive than the agent model that mobile operators use for mobile money.
It would also be great if sending money could also be done via the web so that senders don’t have to find an ATM at odd hours. Another issues is that we’re not sure how secure sending a PIN and Voucher ID manually (over SMS, phone call, email etc..) is. What if it gets into the wrong hands?
The launch of the service last week came along with the launch of Hello Money, a mobile banking application. Previously, Hello Money was reported to be a Smartphone application but the announcement last week makes it clear it can work on any phone, presumably via USSD. But, unlike smartphone and web apps, USSD has its network level permission issues and so far, the announcement says, Hello Money is only available on the Econet and Telecel networks.
The service is part of the effort by banks to win back the money transfer business they have lost mostly to Econet whose EcoCash mobile money transfer service has had a massive adoption since launch almost years ago. Before EcoCash money transfer transactions were done via bank deposits and withdrawals, which meant both parties had to have bank accounts, or at least know someone who had. Some transactions were also done through the Zimpost post office ‘telegram’ service.
Here’s a PDF document of a Barclays brochure with details of how it works.
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11 comments
this has been long happening is south Africa FNB atleast we are getting there.
CABS, POSB, FBC, Trust… These guys already using something similar?
FNB has been doing this for years yes. But good thing its now at our door step
the proverbial barn door?
Everything about this service sounds great and innovative.
Except for one thing: the name. Cashsend.
Seriously, ‘Cashsend’?
Not sure how useful having to use an ATM to initiate the transaction is – or just using it on 45 ATMs in the country… It seems like an effort in futility – perhaps there is more to come.
Everything about this service sounds old and cumbersome.
Especially one thing: the name. Cashsend.
Seriously, ‘Cashsend’?
While there are many ways of killing a cat, we need not waste a lot of time killing a dead cat. All these solutions are well and good but until I can have seamless integration of my my mobile, my bank account and transfer/payment agent of my choice, all these guys are wasting their time and mine. I don’t want to waste my lunch hour standing in a bank queue and I certainly do not want to lose hours during my working day just to send a buck to my brother in Mabvuku. Banks and and other service providers need to understand that times have changed and they need to come to me. The longer they take coming, the more I’ll lose interest. My phone is on me and I’m online 24/7…. bring your service to me. I have better things to do than stand in your unwelcoming joints with little or no respect/regard to my being or wallet.
“”Another issues is that we’re not sure how secure sending a PIN and Voucher ID manually (over SMS, phone call, email etc..) is. What if it gets into the wrong hands?””
– mobile has its risks, yes, but no one is shouting loud about EcoCash, are they? I hear the old Nokia’s cant even support the new encryption standard (I hope I am wrong), and the first 2 (or is it 3) standards are already long cracked… never mind upgrading all those tower$ . I have a friend in Kenya telling me they just ignore the problem there too. It is a brave new (ostrich head-in-sand) world we are in!
why compare everything to ecocash? y cant banks just do their thing. this is very innovative