Zimbabwe’s financial story is dominated by currency instability, and open banking is far from the priority. The country introduced a new gold-backed currency, the ZiG, in 2024, mobile money led by EcoCash carries much of the economy, and the payments focus is stability and regional integration rather than data sharing.
Years of currency turmoil have pushed Zimbabweans toward mobile money and digital payments as a way to transact when cash is scarce or unstable. EcoCash is the dominant wallet, reaching far more people than the formal banking sector, and mobile money accounts for a large share of transactions. This heavy reliance on digital payments is a strength, but it sits on top of an unusually fragile monetary base.
The regulator is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). In April 2024 it introduced a new currency, the ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold, backed by reserves and precious metals, in an effort to restore monetary stability after repeated bouts of hyperinflation. Much of the central bank’s attention goes to stabilising the ZiG and rebuilding confidence in the currency, which necessarily comes before any conversation about open banking.
As a member of the Southern African Development Community, Zimbabwe is connected to SADC-RTGS, the real-time settlement system run by the South African Reserve Bank, and to TCIB, the low-value cross-border instant payment scheme that bridges into the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System. There is, however, no open banking framework and no published roadmap. With currency stability the overriding priority and a payments system built heavily around mobile money, consent-based data sharing is not a near-term goal.
For Zimbabwe, everything runs through currency stability. Until the ZiG is on firm footing and confidence returns, open banking will stay off the agenda. The country’s very high mobile money usage is a real asset, and if monetary conditions settle, that digital base could support more sophisticated financial services later. For now, the story is stabilisation, not open banking.
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Open Banking Nigeria (Open Technology Foundation) is a non-profit backed by a group of industry experts across banking, fintech, risk management, and more to drive and launch the open banking standard in Nigeria.
