Zimbabwe coins introduced to end change shortage

The Zimbabwe Reserve Bank (RBZ) on Thursday introduced $10 million worth of special bond coins into the market to ease the shortage of small denominations of the United States dollar.

Zimbabwe adopted multi-currencies in 2009 after it was forced to introduce its inflation battered dollar but business has been struggling to deal with a shortage of United States coins.

The government has been struggling to find lasting solutions to the problem of leaving Zimbabwean retailers to devise a variety of solutions to get around the shortage of change but none of them proved satisfactory.

The country's liquidity crisis means shopkeepers and market traders often give change in sweets, airtime for mobile phones and even condoms.

But for small merchants who sell handfuls of tomatoes, onions and lemons to poor people, customers may not always have the luxury of buying a dollar's worth of merchandise.

However, RBZ injected denominations of 1c, 5c, 10c and 25c, while the 50c coin will be introduced in March next year.

Their value would be on par with United States cents and are only for local use.

Similarly, rand coins of 10c, 20c, 50c R1, R2 and R5 worth about R30 million will also be imported to complement the special bond coins.

A total of $20 million worth of bond coins will be imported alongside R20 million worth of rand coins to augment existing stock.

Zimbabwe has exclusively used foreign currency for all transactions since early 2009 after the Zimdollar was rendered worthless by a world record-breaking hyper-inflation.

The US dollar and South African rand are the main currencies used, although about five other currencies are permitted.

The introduction of the special coins has raised fears that government wanted to return the banished Zimbabwe dollar to replace the multicurrency regime.

RBZ boss John Mangudya said the bond coins which were minted outside Zimbabwe would be anchored by a $50 million bond facility from Afreximbank.

"The coins will ease the problem of small change and eliminate the problem of rounding up of prices to a dollar where there is no option to buy more goods and ease the hassle commuters go through trying to break up a dollar to find change," he said.

Source: Zimbabwe coin, change crisis ends The Africa Report (18/12/14)

Paypal comes to Zimbabwe - but you can only pay and not receive money.

PayPal is entering 10 new countries this week, including Zimbabwe, providing online payment alternatives for consumers via mobile phones or PCs in markets often blighted by financial fraud and bringing the number of countries it serves to 203.
Starting on Tuesday (17/06/14), consumers in Nigeria, which has 60 million users and has Africa's largest population, along with nine other markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America will be able to make payments through PayPal.
"PayPal has been going through a period of reinvention, refreshing many of its services to make them easier to use on mobile (phones), allowing us to expand into fast-developing markets," Keeley said.
Once the services go live, customers in the 10 countries with access to the Web and a bank card authorized for Internet transactions will be able to register for a PayPal account and make payments to millions of sites worldwide.
Initially, PayPal is only offering "send money" services for consumers to pay for goods and services at PayPal-enabled merchant sites while safeguarding their financial details. This is free to consumers and covered by fees it charges merchants.
"We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance," said Keeley, a former regional banking executive with Standard Chartered Plc and senior executive with payment card company Visa Inc.
PayPal [services in these new countries] does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers. It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services, he said.
A total of 80 million Internet users stand to gain access to PayPal global services this week, including those in five European markets - Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco and Montenegro, four in the African nations of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe, as well as Paraguay. Internet usage figures are based on research by Euromonitor International.
PayPal counts 148 million active accounts worldwide.
Source: Paypal comes to Zimbabwe - Bulawayo24 (16/06/14)