Zimbabwean banks faced widespread disruption this week after the central bank’s payment network went down. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said it was working to fix the problem, which has stalled transactions across the financial system.
On Tuesday, lenders, including the Central African Building Society Ltd, the nation’s biggest mortgage provider and part of Old Mutual Ltd., told clients that the real-time gross settlement platform had stopped working.
The RBZ admitted on Monday that it was experiencing a “technical challenge” that could delay banking services. Its website remained offline through Tuesday, leaving the official dollar exchange rate for the gold-backed ZiG currency unavailable.
Large retailers and local councils often rely on the central bank’s website to set prices for goods and services. The disruption also hit the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, which could not settle payments.
Lawrence Nyazema, president of the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe, confirmed that the outage affected payments across the market. He noted, however, that the RBZ had restored some services.
