The state of digital payments in Zimbabwe

You should really read this article from the guys at Flixtechs.

Building e-commerce in Zimbabwe sucks. Its no secret, it’s just terrible. Stripe doesn’t accept you, local payment gateways are a pain to use. Besides, there’s only two notable payment gateways. This is strange, considering how much Zimbabweans have been friendly towards digital wallets. Infact, every other quarter we get a new digital wallet or remmitance business going crazy with marketing.

Whats the gap between digital wallets and digital payments processing? Simply put, online payments processing in Zimbabwe is for enterprise builders. If you are just another indie developer trying to accept online payments from the comfort of your bed, please wake up. It’s not gonna happen. You are going to need to make 30 calls to Ecocash to get access to their API, or pay Paynow 14% per transaction(and thats before tax).

If you prefer the sacred ways, you can try asking Contipay out on a date, and maybe they will give you access to their documentation. Maybe they will tell you, you’re not their type.

ZIMSWITCH has potential to be a big player. With almost a monopoly over POS payments and the likes, its easier for them to make the jump to online payments. It should be that easy right? I guess, but maybe they think differently.

On the other hand, Steward Bank is just Ecocash masquerading as a bank, they take the same approach. Their payments infrastructure is behind a walled garden, to use it you need to know the answer to the Sphinx riddle. Good luck.

There is a void that needs to be filled. Average Zimbabwean developers should be able to spin up a weekend project and start making money without hassle. Someone needs to make it very easy for a non-enterprise team to actually accept payments with fees that don’t break the bank. Most importantly the solution needs to focus heavily on developer experience.

Maybe you will build the infra. In which case, I wish you the best of luck.