Zimbabwe's bank lending freeze will worsen economic crisis — business chamber

📆 10/05/2022 10:15:00
📰 TimesLIVE

⏱ Reading Time:
34 sec. here
2 min. at publisher
📊 Quality Score:
News: 17%
Publisher: 59%

Nigeria News News

Zimbabwe's decision to suspend bank lending in a desperate bid to arrest the rapid devaluation of its currency will worsen the economic crisis and expose borrowers to predatory loans, the country's business chamber said.

“Surely, this is not an ideal measure to control the growth in broad money supply,” the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered banks to stop lending with immediate effect on Saturday, saying the unprecedented move was meant to stop speculation against the Zimbabwean dollar, which has been rapidly devalued on a thriving black market. On Monday, the official rate moved to 275.79 Zimbabwe dollars, according to the central bank website, after the government decided to use interbank market rates instead of a rate determined during the central bank's weekly auctions.

An official of the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe told Reuters it would comment on the order to suspend lending only after a meeting with the central bank on Monday.

Write Comment

You get what you vote for

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

Nigeria Nigeria Latest News, Nigeria Nigeria Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Two new seasons of Business Talk in productionBusiness Talk – the online business talk show from BusinessTech – has two new seasons in production.
Source: BusinessTechSA - 🏆 24. / 61 Read more »