Zimbabwe’s financial services institutions and the business sector have been urged to embrace e-banking and the usage of plastic money to help end a tight liquidity crunch that is threatening to scuttle efforts to stabilise the economy.
There is a biting cash shortage in Zimbabwe, which ditched its own currency three years ago and is currently using multiple currencies, including the US dollar as the base currency.
Zimbabwe’s economy has continued to rely on cash-based transactions, even for high value supermarket and business undertakings, said Finance Minister Tendai Biti.
Biti went on to say that point of sale machines could help financial institutions bring more value to their clients.
“The availability of points of sale and their utilisation remain low, giving rise to high value transactions in cash,” Biti said.
He called on banking institutions and the business community to promote the use of plastic money, amid the “liquidity challenges” in the country.
However, a banking executive who refused to be named said there was low interest by Zimbabwean banking depositors to utilise point of sale devices in supermarkets.
“Most of the major supermarkets have these machines and we recently took delivery of even more but the problem is that there is low usage and uptake by most of our clients,” he said.
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