ZiG, Zimbabwe’s new currency, began trading on Monday, 8th April, as businesses struggled with the country’s sixth attempt at introducing a revamped unit.
Details
Reserve Bank Governor John Mushayavanhu set the introductory exchange rate of 13.56 per US dollar for the ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold, where it started trading.
The interbank market will set the daily exchange rate from now on, Mushayavanhu said during an April 5 presentation of the monetary policy statement.
Banks, retailers, telecommunications companies, and other firms spent the weekend reconfiguring their systems to adopt ZiG ahead of business resuming Monday. Only US dollar transactions were unaffected by the currency change.
Digging Deeper
Only about half of Zimbabwe’s 19 banks are expected to be able to process ZiG transactions by Monday morning, according to Zabron Chilakalaka, the chief executive officer at ZimSwitch, the national payments platform.
ZimSwitch allows individuals to send 2,400 ZiG per transaction ($176) and 8,000 ZiG a 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 customer balances to the country’s new currency.
“[After April 12], the Reserve Bank expects that all the online payment platforms will be operating smoothly for all transactions,” the bank said in a statement.
Source: Bloomberg
Catch up on news and other tidbits on our WhatsApp Community Page, Twitter/X, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter to ensure you don’t miss out on any news.
