MTAs provide fast, confidential service

Money Transfer Agencies licensed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe have agreements with various international money transfer companies and operate within the regulations laid down by the central bank to safeguard those who make use of them.

They are expected to keep adequate floats of both local and foreign currency to enable them to make swift payment to the local recipients of money sent through them from abroad. The Reserve Bank expects the entire process of sending money from abroad to a recipient in Zimbabwe to take no more than 24 hours.

Licensed local Money Transfer Agencies are not allowed to charge commission or make any other charge or make any deduction from the money sent to a local recipient by a Zimbabwean living abroad. The Reserve Bank instead pays the MTA an agency fee, calculated at the rate of 1,5 percent of every foreign currency dollar the agency delivers to it.

This is intended to ensure the recipient of the funds receives the full value of the money sent from abroad.

Local licensed MTAs are directly supervised by the Reserve Bank. Their core business is to receive funds from persons living abroad for disbursement to recipients in Zimbabwe and to disburse these funds to the local recipients.

They have to issue a Reserve Bank Money Transfers receipt to the recipient for the money paid out to him or her.

Some of the licensed MTAs are banks, some are other financial institutions and some are purely money transfer agencies.

Only banks are authorised dealers in terms of exchange control regulations. Non-bank MTAs cannot, therefore, purchase foreign currency for their own account.

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