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CASH transactions declined by eight percent from $5,3 billion in July to $ 4,9 billion in August, as an acute of shortage cash forces more people to use online payment methods, data from the central bank has shown.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) noted that the total value of mobile and internet based transactions in August amounted to $766 million, from $709 million in July, while cheque transactions declined by 14 percent to $7.9 million during the same period.
“The value of transactions processed through the RTGS system increased by 0.4 percent to $3.93 billion in August 2016, from $3.91 billion recorded in July 2016. RTGS transactions volumes also registered a five percent increase from 242 373 in July 2016 to 253 938 during the period under review,” said the central bank in the latest monthly report.
Zimbabwe’s value of transactions processed through the National Payment Systems (NPS) rose by 26 percent to $1 371,80 million for the week ended October 28.
According to RBZ data, the increase was largely driven by an increase in Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transactions, which went up by 32 percent during the period under review.
RTGS transactions accounted for 85,4 percent of all the value of electronic transactions, rising from $884,84 million in the previous week to $1 171,72 million during the week under review. In value terms, the distribution of payments processed through the NPS other platforms accounted as follows: Mobile transactions (7,31 percent); Point of Sale (5,66 percent); Automated Teller Machines (1,49 percent) and Cheque (0,12 percent).
Annual broad money supply increased by two percentage points to 16.8 percent in August driven by an increase in short term deposits, statistics from the central bank have shown.
Demand deposits grew by 30 percent while savings were up 11.6 percent. Over 30-day deposits, however, recorded a decline of 0.79 percent during the same period.
On a monthly basis, growth in broad money supply increased by 1.7 percent from $5,1 billion in July 2016, to $5,2 billion in August 2016.
Annual banking sector credit increased from $5 billion in August 2015 to $5, 8 billion in August 2016.
Month-on-month banking sector credit declined by 0.10 percent from $5,7 billion recorded in July 2016.
Credit to the private sector declined by 7.1 percent from $3,7 billion last August to $3,4 billion in August 2016 making it the sixth consecutive year-on-year decline since March 2016 as banks impose tighter lending conditions. “On a month-on-month basis, credit to the private sector decreased by 0.02 percent, from $3,4 billion in July to $3,4 billion in August. Developments on private sector continued to reflect cautionary lending by banks, in an environment characterised by a slowdown in economic activity,” reads the report. — The Source/BH24
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