津巴布韦能成为非洲第一个无现钞国家吗

    津巴布韦电信大亨斯特拉夫•马希依瓦是该国唯一的亿万富翁，一直被誉为“具备全球商业影响的人物”、“新非洲的名片”和“非洲的比尔•盖茨”。他不负盛名，依然在大胆开创新业务。

    身为津巴布韦最大的移动网络运营商Econet Wireless的创始人兼董事长，他希望能把该公司移动钱包技术EcoCash变成津巴布韦的主流支付方式。这件事非同小可：马希依瓦基本上是想用数字货币代替印刷货币，把他的祖国转变为非洲第一个无纸钞的经济体。

    这这件事能成功吗？它没有你想象的那么遥不可及。津巴布韦数十年来一直由铁腕独裁者罗伯特•穆加贝统治，受到美国和欧盟制裁，因而可能比其他非洲国家更迫切需要现金的替代物。新世纪前十年的晚期，这个国家遭受了难以置信的恶性通货膨胀——2008年最高峰时，一罐可口可乐在早晨卖500亿津巴布韦元，当天营业结束时就卖1500亿津巴布韦元。因此，这个国家在2009年被迫放弃了本国货币，采用其他经济更稳定国家的货币。

    眼下，津巴布韦的经济几乎完全依赖美元。但其经济的“美元化”产生了一系列新问题。流通中的有限纸币既破又旧，由于缺乏硬币，商店店主们无法找零。它意味着顾客必须被迫接受口香糖、香烟和其他小东西当作找零。

    走进EcoCash.“通过提供可替代实物美元的另一交易媒介，EcoCash能够利用当前的形势，”华盛顿智库布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）发展研究员劳伦斯•钱迪说。“在商店进行支付时，找零可以通过增加通话时间或移动货币的方式提供。”

    不容置疑的是，EcoCash正在填补非洲最贫困国家的基本消费需求，而这个国家很大一部分人口都被排除在正规银行体系之外。在两年多一点的时间里，津巴布韦31%成年人口登记注册了这项服务。这一群体每个月使用他们的手机进行的交易超过2亿美元，相当于该国国民生产总值（GDP）的22%。

    对于Econet，这项服务是它摆脱自己收入增长疲弱的核心语音和数据业务、同时进行业务组合多样化的一条途径。通过手机获得早期成功，Econet将自己未来增长的大部分放在来自EcoCash等服务的津巴布韦非语音业务收入上——这家公司在包括尼日利亚、南非和博茨瓦纳等非洲国家经营业务。

    Zimbabwean telecom tycoon (and the country's only billionaire) Strive Masiyiwa has been called a "global business influential," a "face of New Africa," and the "Bill Gates of Africa." He continues to live up to the reputation with a new venture that's as bold as they come.

    The founder and chairman of Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe's biggest wireless network operator, wants to turn the company's mobile wallet technology, known as EcoCash, into Zimbabwe's primary method of payment. It's no small task: Masiyiwa essentially wants to replace printed currency with digital money, transforming his native country into Africa's first paperless economy.

    Can it be done? It's not as far-fetched as you might think. Zimbabwe -- ruled for decades by the iron-fisted dictator Robert Mugabe and, accordingly, subject to economic sanctions from the U.S. and EU -- needs an alternative to cash more badly than perhaps any other country in Africa. In the late 2000s, it suffered from such mind-boggling hyperinflation -- at its height in 2008, a can of Coca-Cola that cost ZIM$50 billion in the morning would cost ZIM$150 billion at the close of business on the same day -- that it abandoned its own currency in 2009 in favor of currency from other, more stable countries.

    Today, Zimbabwe's economy relies almost exclusively on the U.S. dollar. But the "dollarization" of its economy has created a new set of problems. The limited number of bills in circulation are old and tatty, and shopkeepers are unable to make change due to a shortage of coins. That means shoppers are forced to accept change in the form of chewing gum, cigarettes, and other small items.

    Enter EcoCash. "EcoCash has been able to take advantage of this situation by providing an alternative medium of exchange from physical dollars," says Laurence Chandy, a development specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "When payments are made at stores, change can be provided in the form of an airtime top-up or mobile money."

    There's no question that EcoCash is filling a basic consumer need in one of Africa's poorest countries, where a great deal of the population has been excluded from the formal banking system. In a little over two years, the service has registered 31% of Zimbabwe's adult population, a group responsible for more than $200 million in transactions per month -- that's about 22% of the country's GDP -- using their mobile phones.

    For Econet, the program is a way for it to diversify its portfolio away from its core voice and data business, where revenue growth has been weak. With an early success on its hands, Econet is staking much of its future growth in Zimbabwe -- and other African countries in which it does business including Nigeria, South Africa, and Botswana -- on non-voice revenues that come from programs like EcoCash.