The Finance Ministry says it is planning on introducing more point of sale machines popularly known as swipe machines in a bid to promote the use of plastic money.

It says this will see long bank queues brought to a low.

Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state media: Long queues outside the banks are being experienced particularly during month-ends and Government is promoting the use of electronic payments in order to reduce pressure on the demand for physical cash.

“As at end of year, 325 40 point-of-sale machines and 40 590 agents were deployed across the country in all sectors of the economy.

“This momentum to grow devices and access points dovetails with the national financial inclusion policy thrust where the planned deployment is expected to reach 100 000 POS’ and 90 000 mobile payment agents by year 2020.

“It is encouraging to note that, in keeping with the thrust of promoting electronic payments, a number of payment service providers and banks have enhanced deployment of devices and access points.

“Further, the Reserve Bank reduced the charges for using electronic payment platforms to one percent on the automated teller machines and 1,25 percent withdrawals on the counter.”

Chinamasa added saying domestic savings were critical to dealing with cash shortages as remittances from Zimbabweans outside the country, inward foreign investments and external loans would be used for revenue generating development projects.

He said Government had stepped up efforts to broaden its tax base to increase the amount of foreign currency collected at Zimbabwe’s ports of entry and exit.

“Government has instituted measures to enhance tax collection efficiency, curb revenue leakages and corruption through automating the Zimra tax management system, capacitating Zimra with relevant skills to detect transfer pricing and other techniques to deal with illicit financial flows and introducing an electronic cargo tracking system to monitor transit traffic.

“The implementation of these measures has already started yielding positive results and ZIMRA met its revenue target for the first two months this year,” he said.