The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is set to resume online payments after April 12 as banks and other payment service providers adjust customer balances to the new currency, the Zimbabwe Gold (ZIG).
Following the ZiG on April 5, online payment platforms in the country could not transact with the Zimbabwe dollar anymore. This resulted in the seizure of businesses across the nation, as banks and payment providers needed to recalibrate their systems to the new Zimbabwe Gold.
Many Zimbabweans cannot go on with their daily lives, as paying for basic goods and services is impossible.
However, Zimbabweans have created a method of cash-based transactions using more stable currencies, such as the US dollar, South African rand, and the Botswana pula.
This is the result of fear of keeping money in the bank and having it converted by the banks to the previous unstable currency. That directly halted the widespread usage of online transactions by Zimbabweans.
However, there have been a few payment service providers that were adopted gradually by Zimbabweans over the years. Some of those services include Ecocash, a digital wallet, and O’Mari, an app that offers mobile money, insurance tech, and investment tech products.
