Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Bank charges remain high in Zimbabwe, with Stanbic Bank (above, during the cash crunch of the Zimbabwe dollar days) getting 73 percent of its income from fees and commission and ABC bank getting 92% of its income from the same source as well as dealing commissions. The jump in deposits at Zimbabwean banks could have been much higher than it is now if these charges were reduced. But the mentality still seems to be that of milking the banking public for all they are worth. Harare, Zimbabwe, 16 October 2009 From a base of US$200 million in February this year, deposits at Zimbabwe's banks have now reached more than US$700 million, an increase that shows people are slowly beginning to gain confidence in the banking system. Zimbabwean banks also revealed yesterday that they have dispersed  US$368 in loans to their clients, from a zero advances position in February this year, when the Inclusive Government was inaugurated. Zimbabwe now uses a mixture of South African Rand and US dollars as...

This is virtually the only South African currency still freely available in Zimbabwe - 5 Rand coins, which most shops use for change. The coin in equivalent to 50 US cents in most outlets. As for notes, as soon as people accumulate a good amount of them, they run with them either to the bank or to black market traders, who are offering better rates on the rand than the US$1 to R10 offered by retailers and other sellers of products. This is all just a failure of policy and a failure to plan by the Inclusive Government. Harare, Zimbabwe 08 August 2009 The South African Rand, the preferred currency for the Inclusive Government of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert "The Solution" Mugabe, has disappeared from Zimbabwe in the last few weeks. It used to be that when one went into a shop, they got their change in rands even if they had paid in United States currency. At the time, there were less US dollars than Rands in Zimbabwe. There are also no United States currency coins in Zimbabwe, ...

OUT IN THE COLD? Morgan Tsvangirai is seen here at the Dutch Prime Minister's Office with a painting of a snowy winter landscape by P. F. de Noter  as a backdrop. (What, no Van Gogh?). The Ducth Prime Minister said his country would not give Zimbabwe any of the money it is seeking. Instead, they will continue with their humanitarian assistance. The denial of aid to Tsvangirai is celebrated in huge front page story today in the Government newspaper, The Herald. It sounds like they like the fact that he got nothing. Yet again, we are proved right. (No, we do not get tired of proved right on this blog and we never tire of pointing it out). As you probably know by now, it was announced yesterday that banks in Zimbabwe have now converted Zimbabwe dollar accounts on their books into US dollars. This blog broke that news on JANUARY 23 2009. Click here to read that article. At the time, we were not sure what exact predetermined rate would be used by Gideon Gono, but we now know. The acco...

Death to The Zimbabwe Dollar! Elton Mangoma, minister of Economic Planning from the MDC, announced on Sunday that the Zimbabwe dollar (such as the FIFTY BILLION DOLLAR NOTE pictured here)  has been "suspended" for a year. A lot of commuters are going to be mad as hell, because they had been using these to board commuter omnibuses. But in confirms the timeline I gave in December in my article, Zimbabwe Approaches South Africa to Officially Use The Rand So, you woke up on Sunday morning to hear that what I revealed to you here in my article in December last year (Zimbabwe Approaches South Africa To Officially Use The Rand) has been proved correct. Yet again. As I explained it back then, Gono had met with Mboweni to discuss the adoption of the Rand and the conditions laid down by the South Africans were daunting. Zimbabwe, I told you back then, was required to suspend its own currency for at least six months. (They have done better, with Elton Mangoma, the minister of economic p...