The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has begun crafting a policy framework to guide operations of financial technology (fintech) enterprises, with crypto-currency companies having to be vetted through the regulatory sandbox.
This was said by RBZ deputy director financial markets and national payment systems, Josephat Mutepfa while speaking during a Sound Prosperity Economic Forum in Bulawayo on Friday. Said Mutepfa:
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.
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.
Recently, Zimbabwe has experienced a growth of fintech in several areas, especially in insurance, payments and trading, including the revolution in cryptocurrency.
However, the use of cryptocurrencies is associated with huge risks and the central bank has been wary of embracing them.