Banks have put up cash withdrawal limits to a maximum of $500 per transaction amid a cash crunch crisis hitting the country.
Although some bank officials tried to put the matter under a lid, market snap surveys in and around Harare and in Bulawayo, however, revealed that even the ZimSwitch facility had been disabled and customers were unable to receive cash backs from some supermarkets.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya, confirmed the cash challenge and appealed to the banking public to adopt the use of plastic money in order to minimise high demand for cash.
Zimbabweans generally prefer keeping and transacting in hard cash even though there are some alternative payment systems such as point of sale and mobile platforms.
It has also been observed that the country has low confidence in the banking system following the loss of savings after the transition to the multi-currency system from hyperinflation.
However, analysts say promoting the use of plastic money in a highly informalised economy such as Zimbabwe would be difficult as cash was the widely accepted form of payment and financial inclusion was still low.
Capital markets analyst, Fiona Chigwida, said the push for the use of plastic money would only be possible when financial inclusion reached the 90 percent level that the RBZ set as its target.
- Chronicle
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