Ecocash, the mobile payments giant and subsidiary of Cassava FinTech, has announced its partnership with cashbackAPP, the international loyalty and advertising business. This deal is set to disrupt the market in Zimbabwe and significantly enhance the value proposition to Ecocash merchants and customers in the form of Ecocash Rewards, a highly innovative programme which will incentivise Ecocash payments and financial inclusion.
cashbackAPP Africa CEO, Mr. Kim Hodgson explained that “when we decided to enter into Africa and subsequently the Zimbabwean market, we identified Ecocash as an ideal strategic partner. “
“We understood that by bringing our global technology to the territory and making an investment of over $4 Million into Zimbabwe, we needed a company that has a deep understanding of the local market, an existing customer base and the ability to implement innovation. This, we believed would enable us to be more effective in developing relevant solutions and then enabling access to established channels of distribution.”
“We are elated that we have now cemented this partnership, produced a world first product which brings the power of both companies behind an agreed joint strategy and implementation plan” he said.
Dr. Shingi Munyeza, Chairman of Cashbackpoint Zimbabwe highlighted that immense value would be brought to merchants who are invited to participate on the platform in the form of data analytics, targeted marketing and increased customer sales and that the cashbackAPP platform owned by Cashbackpoint would be bringing additional solutions as part of their commitment to the Zimbabwean people and economy.
EcoCash CEO, Ms Natalie Jabangwe, , said the EcoCash Rewards programme will be a permanent feature on the EcoCash wallet, and was set to offer customers lifetime value.
“We are excited to introduce EcoCash Rewards as a permanent feature to our valued and loyal customers. The depth of customer entrenchment to our EcoCash platform requires us to offer a level of customer lifetime value. Through data intelligence, we can understand our customers’ buying patterns overtime, track their loyalty to our platform and connect this with the linkages to our merchant network by mapping those value linkages within the EcoCash ecosystem,” said Ms Jabangwe, whose award-winning EcoCash service boasts of over 9 million customers in Zimbabwe.
She said the new offering would offer customers some relief, coming at a time in Zimbabwe’s economy where austerity measures have resulted in a general scaling back of consumer spending. She said she believes providing a win-win model that links the consistent value between consumers and retailers would unlock unprecedented value between consumers and merchants through incentivisation for repeated purchases, thus creating ecosystem-wide benefits.
Cassava SmarTech CEO Mr Eddie Chibi said EcoCash customers will be able to enjoy EcoCash Rewards by simply transacting at any participating merchants.
“Once a payment transaction is complete, an EcoCash customer automatically accumulates points which they can redeem for value into their EcoCash wallet by going to the EcoCash menu on their phone and selecting ‘make payment’, followed by ‘EcoCash Rewards’,” Mr Chibi explained.
“A customer can earn up to 25 percent in EcoCash Reward points of value transacted, depending on their selected merchant,” he said. He added that merchants would cut across all sectors of the economy – and would include retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers and tourism and hospitality players, among many others.
Mr Chibi said the idea was to leverage big data analytics and unique usage behaviour to reward both customers and merchants.
“Our aim is to use smart data-intelligence to give value to both our customers and value-chain partners. It’s about employing value-adding technological capabilities to offer more to our customers and our over 60 000 channel partners,” he said.
The new rewards programme will likely offer EcoCash – which already controls over 95 percent of the mobile money market share in Zimbabwe – long term customer loyalty, something that is certain to give an uplift to its parent company, Cassava SmartTech Zimbabwe.
With these two powerhouse companies at the cutting edge of the payments and loyalty industries working side by side, the results are highly anticipated by a customer base expecting world class solutions.
