Zimbabwe has a new dollar exchange rate. $1 for 35,000,000,000,000,000 local dollars.
Due to hyper-inflation to the tune of 500% in 2008, the Zimbabwean dollar was reduced to dirt value, literally. However, the government has launched a new scheme to replace all Zimbabwean currency with dollars until September 2015. President Robert Mugabe’s government has finally decided to discard its virtually worthless national currency.
Since 2009 the country has been using foreign currencies like the US dollar and South African rand.
At the height of their economic crisis, local residents would carry sacks full of Zimbabwean dollars to buy basic goods like bread and milk. Prices were rising at least twice a day. The world hasn’t seen hyper-inflation like this since the days of the Weimar Republic in Germany circa 1921.
From June 15, customers who held Zimbabwean dollars accounts before March 2009 can approach their banks to convert their local dollars into the more lucrative kind.
This process will legally end the local currency, which many people have used as tourist attractions, selling notes to eager onlookers.
Bank accounts with balances of up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars will be paid $5. Those with balances above 175 quadrillion dollars will be paid at an exchange rate o f $1 to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars.
The highest and last note to be printed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2008 was a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. The value of which was a ride on the public bus for one week.
The RBZ said customers who still have stashes of old Zimbabwean dollar notes can walk into any bank and get $1 for every 250 trillion they hold.
That means a holder of a 100 trillion bank note will on Monday get 40 cents. The RBZ has set aside $20 million to pay Zimbabwean dollar currency holders.