Why digital payments failed to gain traction in Zimbabwe’s public transport market

Public transport in Zimbabwe is the last bastion of cash payments or more accurately, it is the industry with the least penetration of digital payments in the country. This is both surprising and not because, on the one hand, public transport is a high-volume sector that is relied upon by hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans every day, the fact that there has been no digital payments/fintech solution that has taken root in the industry is very odd.

On the other hand, the economic situation in the country has sort of necessitated the status quo of cash transactions in foreign currency for public transit. However, blame for the reality as it is seen today is shared, although not equally, between policies and the state of the private sector with distribution skewed more to the former than the latter.

The capital of the southern African country, Harare, is the most studied and offers more information and data than other areas. Additionally, the city (and province) being Zimbabwe's most densely populated city makes the rest of the country, although equally important, scaled-down versions that lend better to extrapolation.

But before going any further, we need to set the stage on the market as it is now, both in infrastructure and revenue generation.