Zimbabwe’s central bank continues to tighten banking restrictions, with its latest move restricting the number of internal transfers to only two (2).
The move is part of broader initiatives by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s Financial Intelligence Unit to curb illegal foreign currency trading.
The latest directive reads:
“We have noted a trend where entities are using their bank accounts to buy foreign currency, using a network of “runners”, some of whom have been advertising their services on social media.
“These licit transactions manifest in the form of daily multiple payments from one account to beneficiaries who hold accounts in the same bank.
“In order to curb this practice, banks are directed to implement the following measures, with immediate effect.
“Each bank customer shall make not more than two transactions per day by way of internal transfer, regardless of the values involved. There is no restriction on RTGS transfers, but banks should exercise necessary due diligence.
“Where a customer has genuine and proven need to conduct more than two transactions in a day by of internal way transfers, the customer shall obtain approval from bank management (whether at head office or branch level).
“Banks shall submit daily returns to the FIU giving details of such transactions and the underlying business purpose.”
Just last week, the FIU imposed lower limits for money transfers through the Zipit platform.
Zipit (ZimSwitch Technologies Limited’s Instant Payment Interchange Technology) is a platform that enables instant inter-bank funds transfers between ZimSwitch’s member institutions (Banks and Wallets) connected to the ZimSwitch’s network.
Prior to that the apex bank recently won a court case against mobile services provider Econet Wireless’ EcoCash platform, which had sought relief after the regulator had frozen the company’s mobile agent lines.
Illegal foreign currency trading has been blamed for the rapid depreciation of the value of the Zimbabwe dollar, which has exacerbated inflationary pressures in the country.
Zimbabwe’s official annual rate of inflation is in excess of 700%, but other observers place it at over 2000%.
Although foreign currency dealers are likely to feel the pinch of the measures imposed by the central bank, they are however yet to yield any positive results as the parallel market rate remains high at circa 80 to the United States dollar.