While browsing on the App Store, as one does on a slow Friday afternoon. We came across an application called OMari (O’Mari) which was under Old Mutual Zimbabwe first appearing in the store in November 2022. The app looked like a mobile money app that on first inspection was not tied to CABS or any other Old Mutual Zimbabwe Affiliate Financial Service.
That made us wonder, “Is Old Mutual coming for EcoCash in the mobile money space?“. This question at first sounded silly because, Old Mutual, as previously mentioned has a bank already but when we registered for the service it came through as a mobile money platform in the proper sense of the term.
If you are in Zimbabwe, you can buy airtime, pay bills like ZOL, do ZIPIT transactions to EcoCash, bank, other mobile money, ZESA as well as pay a merchant and that rings mobile money.
Ever before getting into the app itself, you won’t need any previous affiliation with Old Mutual’s Group to get an account via the *707# USSD which only works for Econet for the moment.
You can register an account on the USSD as well as the mobile app and then get to a position where you can transact. That last part is the tricky one because it set off a number of questions:
- Where do you cash in?
- Is USD, ZWL$ or both?
- What are the transaction charges?
- Are there any merchants who can already accept O’mari payments
- What is the full extent of this move by Old Mutual? (because they are essentially wading into the waters ruled by EcoCash)
Delving deeper into the application, we also found out that there is also going to be an O’Mari card service which is in the last menu of the app.
I don’t know about you but this, at least, at face value screams that Old Mutual is stepping into the mobile money game… You can check out O’mari for yourself with the following links (iOS, Android) and tell us what you think in the comments.
