Low-cost bank accounts (lite accounts) have been a thing in Zimbabwe for some time since the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe launched its National Financial Inclusion Strategy. But, surprisingly, it was only last week when Stanbic bank unveiled its own lite account dubbed BluEase. Stanbic Bank’s head of personal and business banking, Patson Mahatchi said:
Like other lite accounts, BluEase can be opened by simply producing your National ID at Stanbic and you will walk out with your debit card. This is quite different from opening a non-lite accounts as you’d have to produce a couple of things like your source of income and proof of residence. The easiness with which one can open BluEase or any other low-cost bank account makes it attractive to many people especially those in the informal sector who don’t have traceable sources of income.
Features of BluEase
Besides such low KYC requirements, BluEase will reportedly offer low transaction fees and it won’t charge a monthly maintenance fee. Also, BluEase account holders will do pretty much what non-low-cost Stanbic account holders enjoy such as do using mobile banking, online banking, and mobile money wallet services.
However, as with other lite accounts, BlueEase has lower monthly and daily transaction limits relative to non-lite accounts. Also BluEase account holders are not allowed to hold more than $2000 in the account. And BluEase can only be used to do local transactions and most importantly Stanbic says it won’t be used to receive salaries.
A worst of you do not receive your salary
When i asked on Facebook,they said monthly maintenance is 25bond.
So, if you do not receive your salary in it, how is it supposed to get funded? That is the biggest income any working person gets. I think these guys wanted a lite account, for the sake of wanting one, then in the final stages realised existing customers would just convert to lite accounts. Existing accounts only transact locally too. So they started putting nonsensical conditions to using the account.