MONEY transfer company Access Forex (Access) has expanded its currency distribution and collection points to 300- plus after partnering GetBucks Bank and Mashwede Holdings (Mashwede).
The development comes as diaspora remittances — at US$1.7 billion — have remained a vital source of hard cash supply in the country, reportedly grown 10 times larger than foreign direct investments and the five year-old firm has unveiled quite a number of exciting products.
“Access has added more collection points and… dropped our local, and international money transfer prices to just four percent — and up to 50 percent off when sending to South Africa (to encourage more inflows),” the company said.
Apart from Zimbabwe’s largest civil service and small-to-medium enterprise lender as well as Mashwede, the specialised finance house already has Edgar’s, Spar, Zimpost and others on its books.
While statistics show that Zimbabwe’s remittances mainly come from SA — with a 40 percent market share — and the United Kingdom, the Access Finance subsidiary has come up with a raft of innovative products aimed at augmenting government’s financial inclusion and cross-border programmes, among other micro enterprise initiatives.
According to researchers Beacon Mbiba and Daisy Mupfumira, diaspora remittances are mainly used for health care, school fees and other key subsistence issues at home