Ministry of Finance proposes a suspension of duty on POS machines

Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has proposed to suspend the customs duty on Point of Sale (POS) machines as part of measures that will encourage the use of electronic payments.

In his presentation of the 2016 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Statement the Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa highlighted how the growth of mobile money and electronic payments had contributed to financial inclusion and the ease of business for the government through regularised procedures.

The suspension of duty on POS machines is expected to reduce the high costs of importation and installation of payments infrastructure which has been identified by bankers as one of the barriers to the increased rollout of such platforms in the market.

The cost of importing a POS machine is estimated to be around US$500 before duties are added on by the State.

The country registered over 20,000 POS machines in July 2016, a number which also represented the surge in adoption and use over the past half year motivated by the cash crisis in Zimbabwe.

This has steered citizens towards alternative payment platforms that include mobile money and card solutions.