Townshipvibes

So many companies and individuals are now offering money transfer services to Zimbabwe. There is Western Union, MoneyGram, Money Bookers just to mention a few. I have used Western Union and MoneyGram before. Of the two companies I prefer Western Union since it’s cheaper to send money with them than using MoneyGram. However there are also other service providers that others may be using to send money to Zimbabwe.

Which other companies offer a fast and reliable money transfer service to Zimbabwe?

We welcome your contributions, feel FREE to share with our other readers which other companies offer a reliable money transfer service to Zimbabwe.

We understand service providers maybe different depending on which country you are sending money from. It will be important to let others know if the money transfer company is available only in specific countries or it’s an international company.

The Zimbabwe dollar exchange rate: One British pound(£1) to ZW$600 000. The Zimbabwean dollar has not been stable against other trading currencies for some time now. It is very important to check the rates at the time when you want to send your money. Don’t forget to share with others the best rates available, you can do this by posting your comments.

The Zimbabwean dollar is becoming increasingly unusable as more and more people now require payment in foreign currency.

The reserve bank recently authorised some shops and is currently issuing licences for those shops which are allowed to sell goods in foreign currency.

It is very much advisable if you are sending money to your relatives, to give them in foreign currency. Because of the high inflation in the country, it’s not worth keeping your money in Zimbabwean dollars.

What’s the best rate you have heard? As the exchange rate changes everyday, feel free to share the best rates available. There are also different rates around, so for the benefit of others, it’s always nice to share. Feel free to share anything that will be of help to your fellow Zimbabweans.

Zimbabweans are now trading in litres, the dollar is now useless. Coupons have become are now the new currency, reflecting the rapidly falling value of the Zimbabwean dollar.
In a move which reflect the chaos in the country’s financial sector, Zimbabweans have now turned to a new money source….fuel coupons. Prices are openly quoted in American dollars even though the country introduced new smaller denomination banks notes last week, a move which saw coins return to circulation after being abandoned a long time ago.

Auctioneers Hammer and Tongues announced the first auction by barter to be held on Friday. At least barter selling provides something that holds value!

Cars and other goods will be up for bids payable in fuel coupons instead of hard currency and the government has said the system is legal.

“Homegrown solutions for Zimbabweans. Now we are selling in litres not in dollars,” said Hammer and Tongues.
Bidders must put down a deposit of 1000 litres of fuel coupons, worth about US$1500.00 and pay the rest in coupons when they pick up their purchases.

Things are indeed falling apart in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe and his government have managed to destroy a once prosperous country and now we are going back to the stone age days. Is it time to say enough is enough?

Have your say by posting your comments.

Instead of relief, chaos and confusion is the order of the day in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans hunted for coins stashed away years ago in jars and cupboards and headed for the shops were long queues have been forming as till operators used to counting notes, struggle to count the bags and tins full of coins.

The re-introduction of coins has come as a relief to all those people who had coins but didn’t know what to do with them. It’s like a bonus!
This has also bought a bit more money in circulation, but is this going to solve the cash problems in the country?

However things are not right in Zimbabwe. All these new measures are just desperate attempts to save a sinking titanic. Will they succeed? Not so sure.

The economy is confused, the people managing the economy seem to be drunk and now they have managed to cause confusion in the whole country.

In supermarkets, till operators used to counting loads of notes now have to deal with bags of coins. Besides the pain of counting them…I guess some of the coins will not be that clean. But does the government care about the health of those handling these coins?

The biggest denomination note is $500, equivalent to $5 trillion in the old denominations. The old bank notes remain effective until December.

Can the Zimbabwe Dollar be saved? Have your say by posting your comments.

It’s a real strange World! Zimbabwe’s 100 billion Dollar bank note which is not even enough to buy you a loaf of bread in Harare is being sold for as much as £70 on auction site eBay.

Who would buy these valueless Zimbabwean bank notes?

Apparently Zimbabwe’s new bank notes seem to be sought after by collectors, especially the 100 billion note. Zimbabwe’s billion dollar bank notes have more value as novelty items on eBay than what you can get in Zimbabwe.

If you can sale them, it’s more profitable to sale these notes on eBay than go to work in Zimbabwe. God help us!

Meanwhile the reserve bank of Zimbabwe governor, Mr Gideon Gono announced new monetary policy measures in an effort to bring sanity to the chaos in the business sector, these include removing 10 zeros from the country’s currency and also introducing new bank notes.
These is meant to help the country’s business sector, whose computer systems could not cope with billion and trillion figures.

You would feel sorry for the senior citizens, I wonder how they are managing with these high denomination billion and trillions? It’s a shame!

New smaller denomination bank notes have been introduced, and they will surely make transactions easier to conduct. But as long as the government keeps cranking up more new bank notes, the value of the dollar will keep going down.

Time to take out the old piggy bank!

Zimbabwe has gone back to using the old coins……desperate times in the country. Suddenly all those coins that people had discarded are now worth billions or trillions…..it’s now time to look for all those old coins that had been condemned to the museums, but what can you buy with them?

But what is the reasoning behind the decision to go back to the old coins?

Is it that Robert Mugabe’s government can not afford to print anymore money? It was reported that the Germany firm, Giesecke and Devrient GmbH, which was printing some of Zimbabwe’s money had stopped doing so. Tough times indeed!

What next for Robert Mugabe’s government? How long will his government survive? Don’t think it will be long though, You can rig an election or use violence, but you can’t rig an economy.
All the zeros than the reserve bank have removed will surely come back, it’s a matter of time.

Feel free to contribute by posting your comments.

Calling friends, family or lovers back home can be very expensive. Especially with some of the phone cards on the market giving you less than advertised talk time. It can also be even more expensive calling from your home phone or mobile phone. However there are other cheaper ways you can talk to people in other countries including Zimbabwe and can even be FREE.

The easiest is PC to PC talk….You need to have Internet connection and a headset with a microphone that you can plug into the PC, download free software such as Skype, connect to each other and start talking.

It is also possible to make cheap calls from your home phone by taking advantage of specialist cheap overseas ‘override’ phone companies. This is one service that I use, the advantage is that I do not need any account or to go out and by a phone card. It is sometimes comparatively cheaper than phone cards.

I have done a quick check using the International Call Checker tool and found a number of companies with cheaper call rates to Zimbabwe.

Click Here for Cheap Calls to Zimbabwe.

‘Override’ phone companies give you an access number which you then use every time you want to make calls to an international number from your home phone. There are different companies which offer these services and also the prices change from time to time.

Use the international call checker service by Money Saving Expert to check for cheap call providers to Zimbabwe and any other international destination you want to call.

Click Here to use International Call Checker.

You can also get an access number to call mobile phones in Zimbabwe, but personally I avoid these if I can use a land line because they are cheaper. It is also advisable to to double-check prices on provider’s websites before calling.

For phone cards to Zimbabwe and other countries, ComFi phone cards provide lowest long distance rates around the globe

Feel Free to share other tips that can help your fellow Zimbabweans save money.

Does the Zimbabwe central bank know any other way of controlling the cash shortage other than printing more valueless higher denomination bank notes? In a desperate effort to control the recurrent cash shortages plaguing the inflation ravaged economy, the Zimbabwe central bank has introduced a new $100 billion bank note.

The reserve bank governor’s first initiative was to remove the zeros from the currency, when that did not work he resorted to printing more useless bank notes.

How on earth can they manage the monetary situation in the country by printing more of these worthless notes. Every month the central bank is introducing higher denomination notes.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the new notes are for “the convenience of the banking public and corporate sector” in light of price hikes.

“The RBZ has noted with concern the unjustifiable and incessant general increases in prices of goods and services. It is therefore appealing to the business community to follow ethical business practices as well as take an interest in the plight of the general public,” Gono said in a statement dated Friday.

The new note officially comes into circulation on Monday.

Is it time for the central bank governor to admit he has failed? His track record shows how bad the current government has managed the economy and they should just leave for the sake of the lives of innocent Zimbabweans.

The highest denomination bank note in the country can not even buy you a loaf of bread? Gives us a break Mr Gono…..is it real money?

As the political and economic crisis deepens in Zimbabwe, things are getting tough and unbearable everyday for our relatives and friends back home. This is the time when they need the help of family members and friends in the diaspora. Given the cash shortages at banks in Zimbabwe and the continuous fall in the value of the Zimbabwean dollar, which is the best way to send money to our relatives in Zimbabwe?

There is no doubt this is the waste time to be in Zimbabwe. Things are not right, with the economic and political crisis in the country our relatives now rely on every little help we can give. Things are not easier in the diaspora either, what with the current credit crunch affecting global markets.

So how do you send your money to Zimbabwe and get more value for your money?

We tend to rely mostly on people who transfer money directly into bank accounts in Zimbabwe. Even though they may offer higher exchange rates, the problem is your relatives in Zimbabwe will struggle to withdraw the money from the bank. There are cash shortages in Zimbabwe and even though the maximum daily withdrawal limit was recently increased to $100 billion, this is far less than one(£1) British pound, which is exchanging at about $225 billion to £1. So, you can imagine how long it will take your family to withdraw the money you are sending.
And everyday your Zimbabwean dollars are in the bank, they continue to lose value because of the very high inflation in the country.

Add the costs of travelling to the bank, you can see sending Zimbabwean dollars is not the best option to help your family in Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean dollar is now useless…..in fact most people prefer conducting business in foreign currency. So it makes sense, if you can send hard currency to your family in Zimbabwe. They can change the money to Zimbabwe dollars when ever they want to use it. That way, they are guarded against inflation and the continuous fall of the Zimbabwe dollar.

You can send money to your relatives in Zimbabwe via Western Union and they give your relatives foreign currency. There are also other money transfer agencies who are also giving foreign currency in Zimbabwe. But once again you need to be careful who you deal with to avoid losing your money.

If ever there was a time when people in Zimbabwe needed relatives in the diaspora, it is now.Join the debate on how you are helping your family and friends in Zimbabwe by posting your comments.

Just a day after I had send money to Zimbabwe at the exchange rate of £1 to $60 000 000.00 Zimbabwean dollars. Yesterday the rate fell to $50 million Zimbabwean dollars to £1. Is it that the Zimbabwean dollars is ‘gaining’ value against the British pound? Hell NO! it’s just the usual ups and downs of the Zimbabwean dollar over the years.

It is very unfortunate that for the past few years there have been no signs of the Zimbabwean dollars gaining against any other major trading currencies. In fact it has been on free fall. The Zimbabwean dollar is currently trading at more than $25 000 000.00 to 1US dollar.
Despite all the efforts by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to control the foreign currency problems in the country. Their efforts don’t seem to be enough or helping the current situation.

In case we forget, this is even after the Reserve Bank removed three zeros from the currency last year. So is the Zimbabwean dollar currently trading at $55 Billion dollars to one British pound?

For how long will this situation remain like this?

The exchange rate has risen so high, surely it’s bound to fall at some point. Not just the current ups and downs.
But? is the government trying enough, with the right policies to control this forex problem that has reduced the country to a laughing stock.
How do people go about their day to day transactions with such large sums of bank notes? Probably the Reserve Bank may already be working on introducing another higher denomination note to reduce the amount of notes people carry. Even after the introduction of the $10 000 000.00 bank note in January.

It’s embarrassing even to mention these figures. But today the Zimbabwean dollar is trading at $55 million to one British pound. Crazy!