EcoCash vs Cellcard vs TN Cash Card

What I was curious to know was how cost effective these methods might be over the usual method of sending the bus driver with money in an envelope and paying him a dollar or two for the service. So my research was based on the assumption that someone sends you a $100 every month for a year via all the various products to come up with realistic costs of the services and a standard basis of comparison.

Eco-Cash

Eco-Cash takes 5% of every transaction that is made through it, No registration costs or anything just 5%, their magic number split 3% and 2% between the sender and receiver.

5% of our $100 is $5 for every transaction. Over a period of a year ($5 x 12) the total cost of using Eco-Cash will be $60 per annum.

Kingdom CellCard

The Cellcard costs are as follows; a monthly service charge of $1.30 and I was told withdrawals cost from 0.10c to $1. However upon further enquiring what kind of scale they use to charge the the withdrawal within the given range I was told its in the 'system' and so the lady at the enquiries desk didn't know! So much for consumer rights. That leaves us with a dilemma of wether to charge 0.10c or 0.50c or a $1. For the benefit of the consumers I decided to use a dollar, if its cheaper, well Kingdom has to work on their 'system' first so that we know!

A $1.30 monthly service charge for a year would be (1.3 x 12) $15.60. The dollar for our monthly withdrawal would add up to $12. Adding $15.60 and $12 will lead to a total cost of $27.60 per annum.

TN Cash Card

The TN Cash card costs $8 to register for and after that... Well that's it according to them. No usage costs or anything just eight bucks to get one and you can use your plastic money just like cash, with no 'hidden costs'. I think the challenge the TN cash card will have is gaining their consumer's confidence in using a card over notes and coins and making sure their P.O.S are ubiquitous, ndofanira kurishandisa nyangwe pakutenga matomatoes.

The last word

Obviously the TN cash card ($8)is the cheapest (will have to get one & test their service) followed by Kingdom's Cellcard ($27.60) and Eco-Cash ($60). However TN's product is supposed to replace cash and it will be hard for people to adopt to a cashless change.

So that leaves Kingdom's Cellcard as the best option, even though I didn't like their lack of transparency. If you really want to minimize your costs make sure you withdraw all your money at once rather than go to the bank 3 or 4 times a month and get charged for it every time. What I am yet to see is the CellCard's claim of no need to go to the bank as all my friends with the card always end up there.

EcoCash might be more expensive than having a normal savings account if you live near a bank. If you don't you might want to consider that envelope and the bus driver first!