Zimbabwe’s Central Bank Bans Crypto Trading, 60 Days for Compliance

After India and Iran, the latest central bank to bank crypto trading is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which has given 2 months to comply with the new directives.

Reserve bank of Zimbabwe bans all crypto activities

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has banned all the domestic financial institutions from dealing with cryptocurrencies by issuing a directive to the country’s financial institutions that prohibit them from working with businesses and individuals that deal in cryptos.

According to the circular issued by the director and registrar of the banking institutions, Norman Mataruka, all the financial institutions are ordered to terminate their services to the crypto exchanges and start liquidating their accounts related to cryptocurrency effective immediately for which they have been given a grace period of 60 days.

The circular presents seven points, where in order to safeguard the integrity and soundness of country’s financial system, all the financial institutions are ordered to

“ensure that they do not use, trade, hold and/or transact in any way in virtual currencies.”

They are further not allowed to provide their banking services to those individuals and banking institutions and must “exit any existing relationships with virtual currency exchanges within sixty days.”

The circular further explains the dangers and risks presented by the virtual currencies to the financial stability of a country, further mentioning that it can also be used to evade taxes along with “externalization of funds in violation of a country’s laws.”

In a separate statement, John Mangudya, the governor of the central bank warned the public to trade in cryptocurrency at their own risk.

Also, read: Bitcoin Banknotes: Bitcoin Ready to Replace Traditional Currency

Crypto fear: Central banks increasingly moving away from crypto

The notice issued by the bank, also references to its previous two circulars that goes to three years back, explaining that the attention is yet again drawn to the risks attached with virtual currencies and the subsequent need for strict adherence.

Talking about the major cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, the notice points out that Bitfinance (Private) Limited (Golix) and Styx24 are the major cryptocurrency exchanges in the country where the latter one has also set up an ATM machine to facilitate the crypto transactions.

Last year, in November, the bank considered the use of cryptos as an illegal payment which has now been completely banned. In a similar move, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also prohibited all the registered entities from providing services to business and individuals dealing in cryptos, last month.

Recently, other countries took the same route as well as Iran’s central bank made a move to ban cryptos and Kenya’s central bank issued a circular citing warning against cryptocurrencies.

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