Zimbabwe Drafts Cryptocurrency Regulation

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has changed its stands on cryptocurrency and intends to regulate digital currencies in the coming months.

This regulation is set to be part of a policy framework to oversee financial technology (fintech) companies in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe attempted to ban cryptocurrencies in 2018. The ban could not be enforced totally as peer-to-peer trading platforms allowed people to buy cryptocurrencies without regulation.

Since then, the country has supposedly seen a price hike of bitcoin compared to global prices, and the central bank is said to be considering a national digital currency.

During the Sound Prosperity Economic Forum, Mr. Josephat Mutepfa, RBZ Deputy Director – financial markets and national payment systems signaled a change in regulatory sentiment towards cryptocurrencies.

He mentioned that the RBZ is working on a cryptocurrency sandbox framework that will create a requirement for companies to operate.

He said:

“We have already started to come up with a fintech framework because in regulation, everything should be well structured. The framework, which is a regulatory sandbox, will be assessing the crypto-currency companies as to how they are going to operate.”

Further, Mutepfa explained that the sandbox would allow RBZ to decide how to classify companies in the cryptocurrency space.

Once you enter the sandbox you either exist as a bonafide product to enter the market or you are guided to say that you need to partner a bank, a mobile money platform or your product needs to be licensed like a microfinance company.

The sandbox will be an experimenting zone. Once the sandbox is there, there will be an application criterion, which will also act in the same capacity as the sandbox.”

Zimbabwe is seeing a lot of innovation in the cryptocurrency space as the working class strives to improve the economy following a collapse in 2007.

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