From Counters to Code, CABS’ Visa Partnership and the Future of Banking

The Post Business Reporter

Zimbabwe’s oldest building society, Central Africa Building Society (CABS), has taken a decisive step into the digital future, unveiling a strategic partnership with global payments giant Visa that signals not only innovation, but irreversible change.

On 19 February 2026, CABS announced the rollout of a suite of cutting-edge payment solutions, beginning with a prepaid card that has already gained traction in the market and followed by the launch of a highly anticipated virtual card designed for seamless online transactions.

To customers, the development promises convenience, security and global interoperability. To the industry, it signals acceleration. To employees inside traditional banking halls, however, it represents something more profound: the steady replacement of human capital by digital architecture.

CABS has recently risen to become the third most popular card issuer in Zimbabwe, with transaction volumes increasing 195 percent year-on-year and values up 215 percent, extraordinary growth for what was once considered a conservative, lower-profile financial institution.

Its Managing Director, Mehluli Mpofu, described the Visa collaboration as the beginning of a series of product innovations that will modernise customer experience. Visa’s Southern Africa leadership echoed the sentiment, framing the partnership as a milestone in redefining how Zimbabweans engage with their finances.

The virtual card, available through CABS’ digital platforms, allows customers to transact online without a physical card, control spending limits and access advanced fraud protection, all backed by Visa’s global network.

From a consumer perspective, this is progress. From a structural labour perspective, it is disruption.

Zimbabwe’s financial sector has been steadily migrating away from human intermediation. The traditional bank teller, once the face of trust, relationship and financial access, is increasingly being replaced by mobile platforms, automated service channels and digital onboarding systems.

Customer service attendants who once handled queues at branch counters now find their roles shrinking as transactions migrate to smartphones. Account opening, transfers, bill payments, investment advice, functions that once required human intervention, are being executed instantly by code.

The announcement by CABS must be read in this broader context, the fast-moving changes in global finance are now firmly embedded in Zimbabwe’s own banking architecture.

As the Chairman of Alpha Media Holdings recently observed in a sobering reflection drawn from the collapse of print media, what took the internet fifteen years to do to newspapers, artificial intelligence will do to banking, insurance, law and accounting in a fraction of that time.

The difference now is speed, and scale.

The destruction of classified advertising decimated newspapers. Circulation declines hollowed out newsrooms. Titles with over a century of history vanished. That disruption was gradual before it became terminal.

But artificial intelligence does not erode slowly. It arrives and entire categories of work disappear.

Globally, financial markets have already reacted sharply to AI-driven automation tools capable of performing legal review, financial modelling, tax planning and risk assessment at unprecedented speed. Entire white-collar ecosystems built on information processing are being recalibrated.

For Zimbabwe, the temptation is to assume insulation, that limited infrastructure, lower broadband penetration or an informal economy will slow disruption.

History suggests otherwise.

Digital disruption does not require local development. It requires access. Once alternatives exist online, they are imported into local markets almost instantly.

Zimbabwean banks derive a significant share of income from fees and commissions, an income stream historically dependent on human interaction. Tellers, relationship managers, back-office reconciliation teams and compliance officers form the invisible engine of that model.

When AI-powered platforms allow a business owner in Harare to open accounts, transfer funds, obtain investment strategies and receive automated tax guidance in minutes, the cost structure of physical branch networks becomes unsustainable.

The same logic extends to insurance brokers, wealth managers, estate agents and junior associates in law firms. Tasks built on pattern recognition, document review and compliance verification are now automatable.

Entry-level white-collar roles are the most vulnerable.

Yet innovation is not the villain. For consumers, especially in an economy where trust in institutions has often been fragile, secure digital payment systems offer stability and transparency. For diaspora Zimbabweans, seamless global payments are transformative. For small businesses, digital acceptance reduces cash handling risks.

CABS’ partnership with Visa represents competitiveness. It signals that Zimbabwean institutions are not standing still.

But every innovation demands adaptation. The question is not whether technology should advance. It will. The question is whether Zimbabwe’s financial institutions, professionals and policymakers are prepared for the labour consequences.

The future wealth manager will not survive by offering faster portfolio analysis, algorithms already outperform humans there. The survivor will offer judgment, empathy and strategic counsel. The insurance broker who thrives will become a risk advisor, not a policy processor.

The lawyer who endures will provide courtroom strategy and complex negotiation, not document review. The banker who survives will move beyond transaction facilitation into relationship stewardship and advisory intelligence.

Zimbabwe’s policymakers must also respond. Affordable broadband, digital literacy, AI governance frameworks and educational reform are no longer luxuries, they are survival tools. Without a coherent national strategy, disruption will not be managed. It will simply be absorbed.

CABS’ digital pivot is both a celebration and a warning. It marks the beginning of a future where financial access is faster, safer and borderless. It also marks the quiet fading of the banking hall as Zimbabwe once knew it. The changing times are no longer approaching, they have arrived.

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