eBusiness Weekly
Tapiwanashe Mangwiro
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) says the Gold-Backed Digital Tokens (GBDT) will be used for transactional purposes only in order to ease payments and are not loanable.
RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya said; “The GBDT are being issued to expand the value preserving instruments available in the economy, enhance divisibility of the investment instruments and widen their access as well as usage by the transacting public.”
For transactional purposes, the GBDT will be known as Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG).
“In line with the objective to widen access and usage of the instrument, the bank is expanding the usage of the token from the current investment sphere to enable wider usage for transaction purposes by the public,” the Governor added.
Banks are, however, not allowed to lend ZiG as well as earn interest as the central bank will be the only issuing bank of the currency.
“ZiG shall only be issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Banks shall not be allowed to lend ZiG. In addition, ZiG is not going to earn interest. The level of ZiG in the market will only change following issuance or redemption by the bank,” the Governor added.
For customers who hold physical gold coins can elect to tokenise them and that process can be undertaken through the secondary market.
According to the RBZ, participating banks can, therefore, facilitate where there are investors with gold coins who require ZiG.
“Where the banks cannot exchange the physical gold coin, they should approach the bank after vesting period for redemption and payment in local currency, foreign currency or ZiG,” the bank said.
ZiG accounts at financial institutions will run alongside the nostro and local currency accounts. The ZiG account will remain in milligrammes and will operate and settle in the same units.
“There will be no account maintenance tariffs or charges for ZiG accounts. Financial institutions should price ZiG transactions in a fair, affordable, responsible manner for the benefit of the transacting public,” the governor concluded.
