The Bank of Zambia is soon to introduce kwacha notes of higher value, beyond the current 50,000.
The revision of the current notes in circulation has since commenced, which will lead to a phase out period of banknotes with lost value as well as the possible re-introduction of coins.
Director of banking and currency services at the central bank, Edna Mudenda has explained that the coins will be of higher value.
Meanwhile, preparations for the creation of a regional central bank before the proposed 2018 deadline have intensified.
The regional central bank will facilitate better regional trade as well as integration.
Revised legislation for adjustments in Bank of Zambia operations has since been submitted to the Ministry of Finance and National Planning.
Bank of Zambia Secretary, Mathew Chisunka has explained that the new Act will make the Central Bank an autonomous body
MUVITV
Why not introduce a K1,000,000,000 etc. note like Zimbabwe since RB was born there.
Am seeing K100 000 and K200 000 coming. You are welcome to even introduce K4Billion so that we use at Chiluba’s funeral
It will be embarrassing to have high value coins imwe. How can you have a K20,000 COIN or K10,000 COIN. Tizaonako !
The Kwacha continues to lose its power everyday. This is how the Zimbabwean dollar also reached Billions in notes, that is where the kwacha is also heading!!
what do you mean we have no money? Print more money (Idi Amin)…Now it´s RB.
what a farce …. They should be thinking about slashing zeros
Now we are going to hear that the money will have Chiluba’s head on the back.
Some comments are just an equivalent of cow dung. Do some people ever say anything positive even to their children?
In the UK they have £20 ( K150 000) as the biggest practical note. A £50 note exists but no one uses it as you look suspicious with it, you can not get it from the ATM machine, so it is mainly handled by crooks. £2 is the biggest coin.
Zombians (Zambians with no mind of their own) i.e
-Shikapwasha
– Kunda
– senior citizen
The economy of Zaambia is rotten. These are the results when you have dunderheads in power….
To be one of the poorest countries in the world is a manifestation that indeed all those fools called politicians can’t make wise decisions.. I’m sick and tired of them. Bomb them!! Fire burn them!!
CHILUBA MY MAN I MISS U. AT LEAST WHEN U WERE IN POWER YOU IMPROVED THE TRANSPORT SYSTEMS-MYSRIP. WHAT HAVE THESE OTHER FOOLS DONE APART FROM INSULTING EACH OTHER IN THE PAPERS? ALAS!! **==**==**==
And this is an economy that is fast growing and steady. This is the result of having RB as your president. The futures mot looking so bright for Zed
its sad that our country has gone to the dogs please allow some of us to get duo citizenship perhaps we can put behind the embarrassment ..how on earth you continue uplifting the figures of your currency? last time i went home,i felt sad when i pulled a 50pin note from ATM…this aside,i was greeted by stupid ideas of not receiving money in dollars from outside if you dint wish to get in local currency..**** this RB and his clowns have failed to control our economy ..the only thing they can do is to cheat people by introducing new notes…sad..sad..sad..men and women vote wisely this year …atleast remove mmd out of power..enough!!!!!!!!!!
Zimbabwe here we come, you are not the de only ones Zambia is here.
And my Kenyan colleagues were complaining about the Shilling being pegged at US$1 to 92 Shillings….
introduce 20bilion note that will be cool we will be holding the world record
The main problem is getting change after buying some tomatoes at soweto market. I am not an economist but I believe this will make prices of items go up.
They want to have more cash flow for campaigns. Can’t you see even how much they need for Chiluba’s funeral. It they print more money they will use it for campaigning during this years election.
Nu notes, we knt stop-em. As long as sibafakapo CHIMUTU CHIKULU atleast.
Good timely announcement and I hope this will help travellers who go outside Zambia for various activities to use coins nicely.
_
Matt 6:33
This is good, with coins we can have vending machines in bulidings across the country and laundromarts for those of us too busy to do our own laundry. Good step BOZ
Bless
BOZ can you be more elaborate on the proposed new currency structure. These measures are expected and hoped to contribute to efficiency in the local and regional markets. 19 Kunda// I do not see anything political about this measure. I hope you are aware that our economy is growing and thus volume and value of transactions has equally grown to levels that the current currency structure can not effectively sustain.
I beg to differ with you! Only inflation can trigger the change to higher currency and not the growth of the economy to the contrary. The growth of the economy will strength the buying power of the currency and the exchange rate against other hard currencies like the US$.
Bank of Zambia should rethink their plans. The higher denominations will not only be inflationary but a security risk. What the bank should do is encourage people to use plastic money (Debit/Credit cards) otherwise, adopt the US dollar. Kwacha has seriously lost value and if you guys want to develop your economy through trade, you must yield to my proposal.
I obviously do not understand economics so much but I know that the alot of taxpayers money goes towards educating employees at BOZ earning Msc, MBAs and Phds at expensive universities around the world. I do not however understand what value they plough back to the Zambian taxpayer. Talking about introduction of new notes how does that help us?? Why not control the externalisation of forex from Zambia? Stabilise the currency markets, strengthen the kwacha. Ha! why not do just that??
#23 i think that too, they should just change the currency completely or adopt South African Rand. it would be much better than having a 1000,000 note, this is how monkeys can do the country if left to rule over humans. I dont even know why we got independence. when kaunda was there everyting was falling in place but now even a funeral costs billions. shame, shame, shame!
Make k1000 and k500 coins, introduce a k100,000 note but not for common circulation(like the $1000 bill). The k50,000 is fine as our largest note ‘on the street’ as it were.
The truth indeed hurts. When we say things are not right pa Zed some people mostly MMD Vuvuzelas will always state otherwise. I have in mind SHikapwasha, Dora, Chifire, Lifwekelo Chanda Chimba and most unfortunately most of our Traditional Leadrs (except a few) etc.Here is a BOZ official confirming (the position) that our Kwacha is loosing ground.. Soon and very soon we should go the Zimbabwe way by abandoning our currency and adopting the Rand and/or USD. For MMD and RB all is well and the economy is growing while our Kwacha is loosing ground. Very interesting and contradictory.
At some point BOZ contemplated cutting off the Zeros i wonder what happened to that idea. other countries like Ghana Mozambique have done it rather than introducing big notes. as someone has said prices will go up with this intended move.
Fishy indeed. I would have loved the idea of coins for vending machines but alas, yobalis will have trouble because more coin more problem in terms of keeping up those jeans which are almost down already. As for higher notes, it simply shows you that our currency is really under pressure from other currencies. Personally, it is not a good move because its alarming. For real things will become expensive. Just check how prices of commodities ran towards the K50 pin note immediatelly it was introduced. Today a K50pin is for school going children coz its nothing.
This idea seems to be welcome. As a layman who does not understand the implication of having high value notes on the market, I feel this has been long overdue. The last time Zambia introduced high value notes was 15 to 16 years ago. The justification for the high value notes is that the kwacha has depreciated over the years and conducting transactions involving huge amounts has become cumbersome and risky especially for tose transaction where cash payments are made.
The most likely is the introduction of K100, 000 and K200, 000 notes while K100, K500 and K1,000 will be converted to coins. The process will also see the phasing out of K50 from the economy.
Inflation will soar with new notes. Why not link the currency to the SA Rand as our economy is a heavy importer from SA. Zimbabwe is gonna be much much much better than Zambia very soon. I am not sure my intentions of wanting to go back home will materialise with such pronouncements. Anyway I am not a big factor and will keep playing music in SA.
No 32 – Zambia needs to move away from cash to electronic platforms, most shops in Zambia do not take visa/mastercard, etc especially the indian shops. They keep money in cash at their homes instead. If this money is in the banks, the banks will lend it to others for development. The cardinal issues is BOZ should intensify the campaign to have 98% of transactions electronically!
taking away your lower currency will increase the prices on everything….sweets K500 each!
BOZ its Fundanga governor and the rest of the nicompoomps there are not fit for purpose. These are a bunch of clowns. Honestly what is Fundanga employed to do? I always thought it was to manage the monetary affairs of the country. But no! Every quarter every central bank governor in the world calls a press conference to tell the citizens of a particular country the basic interest rates that have been set by the central bank. In Zambia Fundanga uses every quarter to tell Zambians how much copper has been produced!. Any wonder that instead of slashing the three zeros on every Kwacha denomination this bafoon and his minions at BOZ are thinking of printing more rubbish! Zambia a country of economic illiterates with economics PhDs. Irony!
We just drop the use of “thousand kwacha” and replace it with “pin” and a “million kwacha” to be called “athousand pin” . I feel so sad to hear zambians get salaries of say “sxity million kwacha” per month
Better coins will do us good. In europe, coins are doing well. Bus fares, tele-machines etc use coins.
Its quiet absurd for BOZ to thnk in those lines..is RB tha president or maybe he has become RM(Robert Mugabe)…indeed tha country is headng for doom…tha intro of new currency structure will also bring about high prices of commodities…such a shame
No.37 Lusiwa Likota You are correct to a certain extent. Take for example, our boz knows that micro finance institutions in zambia charge extremly high interest rates. Instead of BOZ to “supervise” them on this issue of high interest rates, all they (boz) do is publish the same high rates in the newspapers and go sleeping
introduce copper or bronze coins and ba jerabo will be melting them for resale to the chinese!! or the other way would be awarding a contract to a company in panama to make the coins so that James or Nenani Banda can take 10% commission of the contract value.ni bana banu kabili!!!
#41 BoZ employees own most of the micro finance institutions hence they cannot “supervise” them. @ 37 you are very correct iam not an economist but i was amazed to see that the interest rates at BoZ last year were as low as 7% and yet the banks charge interest at 19 %. Ours is a central Bank that will pay for an advert to congratulate a bank for reducing the base rate.
This is stupid and will only spur inflation. There have been no complaints with the current setup and the need to carry large sums of money has been negated by the introduction of visa services. What is BOZ thinking?
This is how it started with Zimbabwe. This country may not be in the right hands at the moment.
yes. the zambian currency is no longer the kwacha and ngwee it is the pin. the elderly and the illiterate including ba kaponya cannot pronounce the thousands. remove all the zeros and just say 1pin, 5pin, 20pin, 50pin and the new 100 and 200pin. a beer is 5 pin and mealiemeal is 50 pin period. how sad. on a serious not it is so embarassing to talk of a thousand kwacha which can only buy one cigaret. mozambique slashed the zeros. 1 s.a.rand is now 4.5 meticals or1 u.s.dollar 34 meticals. 1 cent,2 cents, 5 cents 10, 20 and 50 cent coins still work. comeon why cant zambia do it.economists can do it without even a change to the inter currency issues.
Interesting postings. I wonder what zeros really mean to a currency’s purchasing power. Surely, shouldn’t bloggers be discussion the Kwacha’s purchasing power and not zeros. For instance, 1 USD = 1345 Italian lira, which makes a 10 dollar treat have too many numerals in Italy (though now Euro is in use), and indeed will represent same number of numerals in Zambia. But the question is, is a10 USD treat the same in the USA, Italy and Zambia? Or asked differently, how many people can have KFC chicken and chips in the USA, Italy, and in Zambia in ZMK 50,000?
No my dear; the value or purchasing power of a currency is also pyschological i.e it can be affected by fear or emotions over staff as mundane as the last 3 zeros in a Kwacha denomination. You wait and see what will happen when the crazy higher denomination note is introduced. I can assure you that prices will tend upwards as businesses align the cost of everything to the higher note. And honestly it is just cumbersome with these valueless high denominations. Let us just erase the last three zeros and will approximate the norm! We can pyscholgically prepare people by issuing new notes that have a line across the last three digits. After a year we issue new notes without the crossed zeros!
..and they say that the Zambian economy is improving.. we’re doomed, i tell you, DOOMED!!!
#28 a ka $20 bill (K100,000) to be used like a $1000? Pliz mate…
I guess coins are easier to use with automatic vending machines. Now we will be able to get vending machines that have chocolates, mosi, castle , coca-cola etc. We dont need K1,000, K5,000,K10,000 notes as they are of no value when you come to think of it yet they cost the same to make as the high value notes.
there we go again, bank of zambia is introducing the new high value currency to accommodate this 1.3 trillion kwacha unplanned and unbudgeted road rehabilitation taking place right now in the country. remmemder rb and musokotwane have upto today failed to convincingly tell the nation where the 1.3 trillion kwacha for the current road rehabilitation works is coming from.what these criminals have done to cover the so called accidental development is to print more money, but most of us that atleast went upto grade seven in our education know both the short term and long term consequencies of flooding the market with more money and less goods which is hyper inflation. i know very well that rb and his team are aware of these consequencies, but they will go ahead and do it because of their despe
Let us just adopt the US$, or £ or the South African Rand. I am starting to be believe that a Zambian no matter how educated or uneducated he/she is, they are just prone to screwing things up. If bets were taken on Zambians screwing up; I think many people would be billionaires!
due to their desperate desire of winning this year’s election , rb and his cabinet will print more and more money to fund their electral bribes. they dont care about what will happen to this country as a result of their reckless handling of the economy especially durring this time. i wonder what sort of brains the mmd suppoters have, for them to fail to see that rb and his mmd team dont care about this country any more?. this country will face serious economical consequencies after this year’s election because of rb. why do we trust this rb, he is not even zambian in the first place, so he doesnt care what will happen to this country as a result of his recklessness
This must never be done. We r headed for trouble
Which way Zambia
Ma rubbish yeka yeka pa Zed!!!!!! Better bring or introduce US$ in Zed.
On this earth only zambia without coins. Good news bring back our ngwees.
Sad news i know no one will believe iam leaving rb camp.
#37 I agree with you, why stash more zeros to the currency if the inflation is going down like the Finance minister always claims. Maybe we have an hyperinflation going on, but like George Kunda like to say, we can’t embarrass the government in power. These bozos must go for Zambia to show any positive growth in the economy.
# 47 Mbinji Mufalo
the zeros in the zambian currency mean a lot. they speak about a currency that is useless and they embarrass us before the rest of the world. i dont like to be embarrassed. otherwise the adjustment may not add or reduce the buying power though it will definitely earn us some better perception among other nationalities. dont tell me perceptions are not important. even in economics.
Cut the ZEROs it will only help the Economy – copy from other countries. We have foolish leaders in Zambia, they never seem to think. A whole Bank Governor comes up with thrash like adding more Zeros to the current Kwacha – how does this help the Economy? It only helps with money laundering. CUT THE ZEROs LOSERS!!!!
they want to put chiluba, mwanawasa and kaundas heads on the money. thats all. mark my words for i am an insider
Before introducing a high value note, lets try 2 look @ countries that are doing better than us eg malawi and kenya do the have such a high value note in an economy ? if we don’t have better economist lets out source from out side they help us building our economy.fellow country men and women lets help our goverment 2 develop zambia.
:((Good to the new notes like coins in zambia back again