Zambia observing developments in cryptocurrency space, to publish position paper soon

The Bank of Zambia (BoZ) says it will soon publish a consultation paper on the development of digital currency in the country.

The Central Bank has, however, sounded a warning that those trading using digital currency are doing so at their own risk until the development on the currency was established.

Some stakeholders such as the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZiCA) recently called for a way forward on the development of digital currencies.

In giving an update on such advances, BoZ Deputy Governor Operations, Francis Chipimo, announced at a media briefing on Wednesday that the Central Bank would soon be publishing a consultation paper.

“We will be publishing consultation paper. Indeed, other Central banks are looking at it, we are aware of two who are actually running it. I think Nigeria and the Bahamas central banks are running the digital currency and the others are in different stages of development,” Chipimo said.

On scams being committed using digital currencies, Chipimo said the Central Bank followed up on them each time they had leads.

He explained that the Central Bank was aware that there were people taking deposits from others using the concept of crypto and digital currencies.

“When we hear about these, we follow them up and we pave way for them to prosecute so we are also conducting awareness campaigns trying to educate people.

“We should be launching an automated system for complaints which people can be able to utilise to interact with the public,” Chipimo said.

Meanwhile, Central Bank Governor, Denny Kalyalya, warned those trading using digital currencies that they were on their own.

“We issued actually a circular so we said that if you engage in that then you are on your own.

“We established a sandbox arrangement that those who want to test their concept they can come and do that. But for now, we are not issuers of that currency, if you do so you are on your own so to speak,” Kalyalya said.

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