Zimbabwe's mobile and Internet transactions breached the $1 billion in March, as locals migrate to cash-lite payments on the back of acute cash shortages.

Data from the central bank indicates that mobile and Internet transactions in Zimbabwe — which has been battling a cash crisis for over a year — closed the month of March 2017 at $1,1 billion up from the $796,3 million recorded in February 2017.

Since the country’s cash shortages began, cash-obsessed locals have been forced to migrate to alternative payment methods with the RBZ aggressively lobbying for a migration to cash-lite transactions.

Mobile money payments in Zimbabwe accounted for 81,2 percent of all electronic payment transactions maintaining the dominance mobile money services have had in transaction volumes, with this increase in alternative cash methods attributed to the cash shortages.