mogul Strive Masiyiwa, says it plans to drive its business to profitability in the coming year through EcoCash after it posted a $26.3 million loss for the 12 months to February this year.

Steward Bank, which is restructuring its operations from traditional banking to focus on services related to mobile banking, hopes to use the EcoCash, Econet’s mobile money transfer service, which processes more than $350 million in transaction monthly.

According to the company, EcoCash has handled transactions in excess of $4 billion since it was introduced in 2011.

Econet Wireless CEO, Mr Douglas Mboweni said more than 1.5 million customers have opened bank accounts with Steward Bank using the new service in the past few months since it was launched by the bank.

Some of the account holders were Zimbabweans in diaspora, who saw it as a convenient way to support their families at home, he added.

While noting that the revenue model of Steward Bank was always going to be pinned on EcoCashSave and EcoCashLoan (both services under the EcoCash), Mboweni explained that the bank’s business strategy relied on innovation and technology and therefore did not require the level of staff that is ordinarily required by a traditional bank.

“It was not an easy decision, and we really agonised over this issue, but we realised that the bank would not be able to grow unless we restructured it to operate an innovation-led model.”

According to Mboweni, Steward Bank is among the top five most capitalised banks in Zimbabawe and would receive more capital as required from Econet to allow the bank to develop more mass-market banking products.