Countries outside South Africa where you can still use rands to buy things

The South African rand may be the official currency of South Africa, but it is used as legal tender in three other countries.

South Africa is a member of the Common Monetary Area (CMA), which includes Nambia, Lesotho, and Eswatini.

The CMA is a monetary union. Although each of these countries issues its currency, all four currencies are governed by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

In addition, the rand can be used in all four member nations, meaning that it is legal tender in Namibia, Lesotho, and Eswatini.

Although the other three nations have their own currencies, they are roughly on par with the rand.

This means that one rand is roughly equivalent to one Lesotho loti, Namibian dollar, or Swazi lilangeni.

Despite being a Southern African Customs Union (SACU) member with the CMA countries, Botswana official uses the pula as currency. In 1976, Botswana replaced the rand with the pula as legal tender.

It should be noted that other countries may see informal/unofficial use of the rand as tender.

Many Zimbabweans used the rand following the hyperinflation of the now-defunct Zimbabwean dollar in 2008.

Zimbabwe has now introduced the ZiG as its official currency, backed by gold.

The rand is also widely accepted in Mozambique alongside the US Dollar and the local Metical.

CMA EFT changes

Despite the sharing of currencies and economic policies, not all monetary transactions are allowed between members of the CMA.

The CMA regulators have decided to discontinue the processing of electronic EFT payments and collections within the CMA.

This means that South African account holders can no longer make EFT payments to account holders in other CMA countries.

South Africans will no longer be allowed to receive EFT payments from other CMA countries unless they are initiated on a global banking channel.

Currently, South African account holders can make EFT payments to Lesotho, Eswatini, and Namibian accounts.

Although local banks initially warned their account holders that their regulatory changes would start to be applied in April 2024, the Bank of Namibia extended the effective date to 30 September 2024.

The final day for processing domestic EFT, such as credit payments and EFT debit collections, between South Africa and Lesotho or Eswatini is 9 September 2024.

Nedbank noted that account holders making and receiving payments or collections to beneficiaries in a CMA country after September 2024 would no longer be allowed to use EFT.

“You can use our global payment platform, global transactions on the Nedbank Business Hub, or our global host-to-host solution to make and receive these payments,” it said.

It added that debit order collection processing will only be supported in-country and not between counties.

“Debit orders collected from accounts within the CMA will have to be initiated from an account domiciled in Namibia, Lesotho or Eswatini,” said the Big Four Bank.

Thus, an in-country banking service will be required to submit debit order collections and the receivables and billing processing accounts.

Alternatively, these debtors could initiate payments from the respective CMA countries to the relevant account holder using a cross-border service.

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