The central bank said that effective immediately, currencies including the U.S. dollar and the South African rand, in use since 2009, will no longer be accepted as legal tender. A local quasi currency known as bond notes, which was introduced in 2016 but can’t trade outside the country, and their electronic equivalent, the RTGS dollar, will now be known as the Zimbabwe dollar.
The central bank made it clear in its announcement that money held in foreign-currency accounts will not be affected, but the step will be greeted with alarm and memories of the lives wrecked and pensions and savings lost in 2008. Recollections of what effectively became a barter economy in a country where a suitcase full of bank notes was needed to purchase a pair of jeans will be hard to erase.
In February, the central bank introduced the RTGS$ and said it and bond notes would no longer be pegged to the U.S. currency. This precipitated a rapid depreciation in both the newly introduced interbank rate and the black-market value. Inflation, at 97.9%, is now at its highest since at least 2008.
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