The Impact Of Mobile Financial Services On Households In The Cash Shortage Era In Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

The study focused on the effect of mobile financial services on households in a cash strapped society. This research was prompted by the increase in usage of mobile money services due to increasing mobile penetration and internet usage in the Zimbabwean society. It was expected that with increase in use of mobile phones would assist in reducing the need for cash by integrating mobile phone usage and mobile money transfer as the country is experiencing liquidity challenges. Evidence in the body of literature points to the possibility of reducing the need for handling cash in a community which has embraced mobile money transfers. On the contrary, despite increasing mobile phone usage in Zimbabwe and the rise of mobile financial services, there persist increasing outcry over cash shortages. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design in order to investigate the extent to which mobile financial services have eased the problems associated with cash shortage.This research was conducted through a survey where pre-coded structured questionnaires were administered to users of Ecocash, OneMoney and Telecash platforms. The questionnaires were pilot tested with 20 users selected Dzivaresekwa 2 High School. Out of the 150 issued questionnaires, 124 questionnaires representing 82.6 % of the total questionnaires distributed were returned fully completed, while 26 questionnaires were not returned representing 17.4 % of the total number of respondents.These questionnaires were eventually used for further data analysis and presentation of results upon which this study is based on. The significance level is 0.001