Zimbabwe bond notes boost transactions by 23 percent

The value of transactions processed on Zimbabwe’s National Payment System (NPS) increased from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion as the volume of transactions went up by 13 percent in the week the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) introduced bond notes, a report by the central bank has shown.

The central bank on November 28 injected $10 million worth of bond notes into circulation followed by an additional $7 million last week. The notes which trade at par with US dollar are expected to help ease a banknote shortage.

The RBZ has said it will release a total of $75 million worth of bond notes by the end of this year.

Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transactions which accounted for 83.25 percent of the total value of the NPS transactions, increased by 23.25 percent to $1.284 billion in the week to December 2 . Point Of Sale (POS) transactions also increased by 11 percent from $104.97 million to $116.88 million during the week under review.

Mobile transactions increased by 29 percent from $92.28 million to $119.43 million while ATM transactions rose by 23 percent from $16.76 million to $20.61 million.

Cheque transactions, which account for a paltry 0.1 percent of the transactions on the NPS, declined 17.8 percent from $1.65 million to $1.36 million.-The Source

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