Kashagi: How convenient is it???

When it comes to innovation in Zimbabwe, Econet Wireless and its subsidiaries are way in front of everyone else. The company wants to disrupt every industry possible as seen by the strides they have been making over the years in various industries. 

With the Economy crumbling and many Zimbos facing serious financial hurdles Econet has came up with a micro/nano loan product, perfectly titled Kashagi. This nano loan product is meant to offer millions of Zimbo's quick access to funds (up to $100) wherever they are for any small emergency that they may face. The process as stated on the Steward Bank website takes around 60seconds for the funds to be deposited and if the funds are returned before end of month it attracts no interest, the only charge is the 5% handling fee that is deducted beforehand. This all sounds good because 60seconds is way faster than begging friend to send you a few bucks for an emergency or opportunity you will have encountered. 

Now the question is does the product act as advertised, is it as efficient and effective as preached and who will it benefit??? Those are some of the questions I will try to answer. To give fellow Zimbos an informed response I had to take Kashagi kacho myself to see how the process goes. So with the few information I had, which is what most Zimbos have, I thought well Econet and Ecocash already have my identification info so there will be no need to input various info and the funds will be transferred into my ecocash account in less than a minute as promised!!!.

So as I the began the application process I realized that not everyone is equal, not everyone can access the maximum amount of $100, I was only eligible for $40, a friend of mine could access $80 and another friend was not eligible for any amount at all (we laughed at him even though we know he rarely use ecocash). You will be told the maximum amount you are eligible to borrow and that prompted a discussion between me and my friends. From the discussion we finally agreed that ecocash probably aggregates the frequency at which you use ecocash and the amounts that pass through your account to determine the amount you are eligible for. That is probably their way of managing credit risk and ensuring they minimize defaults. I have to say it's quite a smart strategy, there is no way they can analyze the eligibility of their 5mil plus ecocash users one by one.

As I continued with my application I then realized that the funds will not be deposited into your ecocash account but one needs to open a Stewart Bank iSave account first to access the money!!! WHY WHY WHY??. Was disappointed because I don't support having countless bank accounts that you rarely use and they acquire bank charges which will eat up a sizeable chunk of your money when after months of being idle you decide to have some funds deposited there, I would rather prefer the funds get sent to my ecocash account. Regardless I continued to apply for the iSave account and yes as suspected they already have my information (name & id number) so I just verified the info and continued with the process. The application process is quick but then you wait for some minutes for the account to be confirmed by Stewart Bank, in my case it took over 30 minutes. 

The account confirmation finally came and was happy that am close to getting Kashagi, wanted to use it to get some fuel. After the account confirmation, I returned to the mobile platform and applied for kashagi and it was successful!!.

The amount was transferred to my iSave account and it probably took the 60 seconds advertised but I cannot confirm that because that would require me to access my Steward Bank iSave account, which I had no idea how to, didint even know their mobile banking shortcode,  it was my first time dealing with Steward Bank. The *236# platform which is used to open and iSave account and apply for Kashagi cannot access you account!! perfect. This meant I have to visit a Stewart Bank branch....again disappointed, because I thought this could all be completed to as you sit on your couch or laying pabed kumba kwako without other unnecessary expenses such as bus fare. By that time it was already after work hours, the banks were already closed and getting fuel that day zvadirwa jecha, so headed home, fortunately the next day was a Saturday so I could be at their branch by 8pm. 

Over the night it pained me that I could not confirm whether the funds were truly transferred or not because as I said  had no way to check except with the notification message saying successful. In the morning I headed to the nearest Stewart Bank I knew of (the one near Fourth and Kwame Nkrumah) and whilst there I realized not all branches are handling the Kashagi issue only a selected few, the closest was the one at Eastgate Mall so I drove there, (the other branch is in Avondale!). 

I got there and there was a young man helping queries like mine in the outer section of the bank as the inside was packed with people who wanted to withdraw money. The guy helped me navigate the mobile banking platform, the process is relatively easy but also quite tedious for my liking, given I thought this was gonna be completed ndiri kumba kwangu. So about 5 mins later the process was complete and at the end the guy said the words that I thought was not gonna hear with this new innovation; "chasara pakuda copy yeID yenyu, our machine haisi kushanda so endai opposite apo and photocopy" argghhhh No Nope!!!. Things are tough and expensive, I don't have money to photocopy so I just said okay and left, I don't know if that will mean they will close down my account, we'll see in time. 

Finally the process was done, to test whether the process was successful had to buy something, so stopped by Bakers Inn yepana Fourth and Robert Mugabe and swiped.......YES it was working. So I applied for $40 and they transferred $38 which is minus the handling fee (5% of 40) $2.

Conclusion:

Before applying for Kashagi I thought Econet haf found a way to improve financial inclusion for all Zimbos, on paper it seems very convenient but those who live out town are automatically excluded from enjoying Kashagi. One cannot board a bus for $8 (to and from) to go to the nearest Stewart Bank branch to facilitate Kashagi ke $30.They just need to utilize the already super popular and convenient ecocash platform which they have.

It seems they already have the identification information of all their customers from ecocash and their credit evaluation system already removes a lot of potential defaulters, so the whole process should be possible without anyone visiting a Stewart Bank agent, except ID photocopy there is nothing they needed there that they did not have already. Then to the photocopying issue, the bank should make sure their printers are working, when someone takes kaShagi in most cases they are already broke or nearly broke, don't make them look for some coins to photocopy and ID which you can get from Ecocash, the same place you already got my Identification details.

Hopefully everything will be smoother now for when  I apply for KaShagi for the second, third, fourth... time. To conclude, the Kashagi product is a good innovation which will undoubtedly help millions of Zimbos, but there is need to improve the registering process to make it as less stressful and swift as possible. If this product succeeds (am guessing they are still trying it out), it will disrupt the whole micro lending industry, if the limit rises to lets say $200 a number of Micro-finances will go under. 

Lastly we may be witnessing the birth of Credit Cards in Zimbabwe, its not there yet but it can very easily turn into one.

Yours Truly

A Zimbo Who Loves Innovation.