EcoCash introduces DSTv payments in RANDS

5 January 2017

EcoCash has re-introduced DSTV payments via its RANDS wallet feature. This comes days after EcoCash suspended all DSTV payments through its normal “USD/Bond Note” wallet effective on 1 January 2017.

The Rand wallet will allow you to pay ALL your DSTV bouquets in RANDS at the following rates:

DSTv Access: R159.50
DSTv Box Office: R36.35
DSTv Family Boquet: R246.50
DSTv Compact Plus: R681.50
DSTv Compact: R406
DSTv Premium: R1044

EcoCash suspended its normal DSTv payments due to the remittance challenges it was facing when trying to make payments to Multichoice South Africa. The RBZ considers DSTv as entertainment so it’s not prioritised when it comes to remitting foreign currency out of Zimbabwe.

EcoCash has now ensured that what it put into their mobile money platform is what they can take out in remittances with the introduction of RANDS payments.

The only issue with using the EcoCash RANDS wallet is that you can only cash in RANDS to use RANDS, you cannot transfer your USD/Bond Note balance across to your new RANDS wallet. There is no cross rate in place to do this. When you cash-in in RANDS you can only cash-out in RANDS or make payments in RANDS.

So this new measure only applies to those that have access to RANDS in CASH.

- Techzim