THE Impact of mobile money usage on intermediate money transfer tax (IMTT) revenue mobilisation in Zimbabwe.

Abstract

This study examined the impact of mobile money usage on the mobilisation of Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT) revenue in Zimbabwe over the period January 2019 to December 2025. Using monthly secondary data obtained from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and the Ministry of Finance, an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach was employed to estimate the short-run and long-run relationships between IMTT revenue and its principal determinants, namely the value of mobile money transactions, inflation, the exchange rate and broad money. The bounds test revealed no cointegrating relationship among the variables, indicating the absence of a stable long-run equilibrium, a conclusion reinforced by a statistically insignificant error correction term. In the short run, inflation and broad money exerted positive and significant effects on IMTT revenue, with broad money displaying an elasticity exceeding unity, while an appreciation of the exchange rate significantly reduced collections, and the lagged value of IMTT was significant and negative. These findings suggest that IMTT revenue in Zimbabwe is driven predominantly by short-run nominal and monetary forces rather than by a durable structural relationship with mobile money usage, implying that its apparent robustness as a revenue instrument may be partly illusory. The study recommends that fiscal authorities exercise caution in projecting IMTT collections and avoid treating the levy as a structurally stable revenue anchor.