Diaspora Folks, Steward Bank’s Sosholoza Works For You Too

Steward Bank’s Sosholoza is an exciting innovation on multiple levels. What’s more? It just doesn’t work for Zimbabweans living in Zimbabwe. It’s also a useful innovation for folks outside the Zim borders.

Not another app!

First, it’s pretty cool that with Sosholoza, Steward Bank is not forcing another app on anyone. Sometimes it gets to be too much with everyone promoting their app. Now, if you are Zimbabwean in the diaspora you probably transact in any Zim related manner a few times a month. Downloading an app for those few transactions just doesn’t make sense.

Sosholoza resides on the app you use everyday. It’s a WhatsApp based service so there is no intrusion into your app drawer. It also kinda makes it more personal the fact that it is on the same chat application you use to keep in touch with friends and family back home.

You don’t need to be a Steward Bank customer

The second best feature as far as I’m concerned is that you don’t need to even be a Steward Bank customer for you to use Sosholoza. If you have bills to pay in Zim you can simply use Sosholoza to do so without needing to open any extra account. That’s cool.

Fair rate

Talking of paying bills, now that currency has been liberalised in Zim you can now get fair value from the banks. No need to send money pabhazi (on the bus) anymore, you can pay bills and buy airtime for your loved ones in Zimbabwe at a fair exchange rate via Steward Bank on Sosholoza without worrying about your funds being diverted.

Integrated to your card

Sosholoza is truly a platform. They have an integration with VISA and MasterCard for all this to be possible. The simple way of thinking about this is that you are using your card over WhatsApp to take care of business back in Zim. Remember, this card we are talking about is not necessarily a Steward Bank issued card, it’s the card you already have.

All you need to do is to set up your card on the platform and you are good to go. The set up process is an easy, intuitive and interactive process. In fact Sosholoza is all the way like that, it’s you chatting with your butler who is just making things happen.

If you want a Steward Bank account

As I said, you don’t need to have a Steward Bank account to use Sosholoza. However, you may want to have an account if you want to access their housing loans for diaspora folks or to buy a home from the bank. For these things you will need to have an account.

For whatever reason you may want a Steward Bank Diaspora account, Sosholoza allows you to open that account right there on WhatsApp.

To give it a spin, just save +263777222333 and WhatsApp “Hi.”