ZiGZimbabwe’s new currency began trading on Monday, April 8, as businesses struggled with the country’s sixth attempt to introduce a revamped unit.
Details
Governor of the Reserve Bank John Musayavanhu set its import rate 13.56 per US dollar for ZiGshort for Zimbabwe Gold, where it began trading.
The interbank market will determine the daily exchange rate from now on, Mousayavanhu said during a presentation of the monetary policy statement on April 5.
Banks, retailers, telcos and other companies spent the weekend reconfiguring their systems to adopt ZiG before resuming business on Monday. Only transactions in US dollars were not affected by the currency change.
Digging deeper
Only about half of Zimbabwe’s 19 banks expected to be able to process ZiG transactions by Monday morning, according to Zabron Chilakalakathe CEO of ZimSwitch, the national payments platform;
ZimSwitch allows people to send 2,400 ZiG per transaction ($176) and 8,000 ZiG per month.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, which has 56 listed companies, said all share prices, price sheets and market reports will now be denominated in the new currency.
Between the lines
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe will resume online payments after April 12 as banks and other payment system providers make progress in converting remaining customers to the country’s new currency.
“[After April 12]the Reserve Bank expects all online payment platforms to function smoothly for all transactions“, the bank said in a statement.
Source: Bloomberg
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