Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe suspends licences of two bureaux de change

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe today suspended the operating licences of two bureau de change and ordered an investigation into the operations of three unlicenced institutions.

Central bank governor John Mangudya said the licences of Shons Finance Services and Kwik Forex had been suspended with immediate effect after it was discovered that they had not been declaring or had been under-declaring their foreign exchange transactions.

He also said three unlicenced entities- Stalllion Financial Services, Forbes Financial Services and Juso Global- which had been trading in foreign currency , were referred to the Financial Intelligence Unit for investigation.

The FIU had frozen all the accounts of the five institutions.

The central bank suspended the licences of Cash Twenty Four and Crediconnect on 9 April for suspected involvement in illicit foreign currency transactions.

Mangudya said investigations into the two had shown that the two carried out several off-book foreign currency purchases and sales which they did not declare.

Cash Twenty Four had admitted the charges and paid a fine of Z$2.5 million.

The case of Crediconnect was still pending.

Mangudya said the central bank continued to monitor financial services players to deal effectively with market discipline.

The central bank pegged the exchange rate at 25:1 against market trends on 25 March but the black market rate has continued to soar.

The Old Mutual Implied Rate today stood at 68:1 while the US dollar was trading at 47:1.

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