Talk:Zimbabwean dollar

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There is only a brief mention of the fact that the Zim bank announced an increase of the money supply. A paragraph stating exactly how this occurs, and what the people responsible think they are doing, would be welcome.

I see also that the government defines 'inflation' as higher prices, and that this was part of the rationale for price controls. This could be incorporated into a description of the various government explanations for the country's financial crisis.

Just curious; why has the article been locked? Does the current notoriety of Zimbabwe attract vandals? 76.2.152.124 (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The main reason that hyperinflation occurs is usually that the government that has no or very little prints money to pay bills. In verey economy there is some inflation and therefore the central banks constantly increase money supply to match demand. However if money is printed to enable the government to pay for things that is really has no money for, then the value of said money falls. Passportguy (talk) 23:34, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, now we know why the OMIR isn't updating. Anyone know why there hasn't been an update to the CATO index? It says it is partially based on exchange rates, so perhaps they rely on the OMIR so can't do their calculations now? --Tango (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The CATO numbers were indeed mostly based off of OMIR, so they can't compute them anymore. It's also a bit of an embarrassment for them I think, because the "on-the-ground" inflation is clearly much lower than what CATO listed. --141.157.119.68 (talk) 03:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The page said, "Since mid-November 2008, the weekly update of the HHIZ has been put on hold. The market-based price data from Zimbabwe have deteriorated and, at present, cannot be used to update the HHIZ. HHIZ updates will be resumed as soon as the quality of the data reaches a satisfactory level."Jimm36 (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/04/zimbabwe-cash-withdrawal-limit-banks

$50 million and $100 million notes introduced. Wow. Looks like the zeros are "knocking on the Governor's door" again. --24.80.126.85 (talk) 05:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Issuing new denominations and increasing withdrawal limits is even more useless now that it used to be - the withdrawal limits are the only thing giving the Zimbabwean dollar value, so you increase then you just decrease the value. So far, the devaluation hasn't matched the increased withdraw limits (withdrawing limits went up 20 times, the exchange rate only 5 times), but we'll see what happens over the next couple of days. I wouldn't be surprised if inflation (which I think is essentially equal to exchange rate devaluation now) completely wipes out the increased withdrawal limits within the next week. --Tango (talk) 12:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You know, it's a Catch-22. Zimbwabweans need money, even if it's great gobs of the stuff, to shop (when they can) and go to jobs (if the companies have not folded up), but the RBZ is well aware by now that they're only adding to the problem by printing more money. So prices go up, Zimbabweans naturally insist on more money to get, and prices go up, and... well, you get the idea. I noticed that the exchange rate on the cash market (which IMO is a better handle on inflation since it measures what Zimbabweans think their currency is worth relative to harder currencies) has started to spike up, so I wonder if this might be the last gasp of the Zimbabwe dollar before they decide as a final measure to simply adopt the South African Rand as the legal currency - a variation on Ecuador's solution. --24.80.120.179 (talk) 05:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If they adopt the Rand (or US dollar or anything else) the ruling elite will suddenly have no money, so they are unlikely to do that. I'm not sure it would work anyway - is there enough foreign currency in circulation for everyone to use it? With no exports, it's difficult to get any foreign currency into the country (people abroad sending money to their families is the only way, really). --Tango (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There will be a $200 million bank note issued shortly. Btw there is a nice picture of the $100 million note at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iu66soJbsRg6i1pCqVacQzO_Dt3Q

Passportguy (talk)

$10 billion note introduced.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/12/19/zimbawe.currency/index.html?eref=rss_latest

This is absolutely nuts. I think the withdrawal limits were raised as well. --142.90.99.60 (talk) 13:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The note worth more than 10801 USD on official rate of Thursday,more than the Salmon Portland Chase note (the 10000 USD note),would be the second highest value banknote ever issued.Oops! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.193.18.99 (talk) 11:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

$100 billion note also introduced. This note is only worth one US dollar on the black market.Jimm36 (talk) 08:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

$100 Billion or $100 trillion? Rubycored (talk) 03:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be grateful if you can direct all banknote-related questions and entries to the talk page of the Banknotes of Zimbabwe article. Thanks! --Marianian (talk) 12:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Zambabwe is made up of many languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.254.237 (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok off topic, go to Languages of Zimbabwe, and most countries have many languages. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 04:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

$1 billion, $5 billion and $10 billion notes were introduced. There are 10,000 t.-pengo, 50,000 t.pengo and 100,000 t.-pengo with 13 zeros cut.(t.-pengo = 1,000,000 b.-pengo) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.126.122.91 (talk) 14:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

t.-pengö? AFAIK the highest note was 1 billion b.-pengö and even it didn't manage to get into circulation...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1 milliard b.pengo (billion long scale). 100 million b-pengo however was the highest released. (Note: 1000 t.pengo would be 1 milliard b.pengo) $1000000000ten0one1 (talk) 23:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pengo? Wasn't that the Hungarian currency that hyperinflated? What does that have to do with this article? --Tango (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is in competition to be the lowesr ever valued currency. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 11:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can now get a pretty good inflation estimate based on the bank notes. Lets (optimistically!) assume that on January 1st, the 10 billion banknote will be worth the same as the Z$100 banknote that was released immediately after the devaluation on January 1st. So in 5 months, the value of the currency decreased by a factor of 100 million. Extrapolating this to a year (divide by 5, multiply by 12), we get about 10 quintillion. Since inflation is expressed in percents, that gives us an annual inflation rate of 1 sextillion percent. Now, keep in mind that this is based on the "average" inflation over the past 5 months. Recently it has been even higher, so if one were to extrapolate the inflation from just the past month for example, the annual rate would be much higher. 38.105.141.161 (talk) 15:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the unofficial exchange rates given in articles that mention new banknotes, it seems like the inflation during the last month has been around 35% per day. (500 million = 8 dollars on December 12th, 10 billion = 20 dollars on December 19th, 100 trillion = 33 dollars on January 16th). --OpenFuture (talk) 08:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And on January the 20th, it's 400 trillion per dollar. [1] That's slightly above 400% per day since the 17th. --OpenFuture (talk) 02:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure the last figure is correct, as the article you linked says that "On the black market, the Zimbabwean dollar is trading at $40 000 000 000 to the South African rand." That is billion not 40 trillion and would translate into a rate of roughly 400 billion to the US$. However 400 billion isn't nearly right for the 20th, when rates were already closer to 4 trillion, so maybe the article got their zeros mixed up ?? Passportguy (talk) 08:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, I was tired and thought trillion when I saw that. That's 400 billion, which is only one seventh of the quote 3 days before. That the currency would suddenly deflate when it stops getting used seems unlikely, so some of these numbers are reasonably incorrect. This means that the pengö is likely to still have the day to day record of inflation, with prices doubling each 15 hours. --OpenFuture (talk) 12:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. With all of these billions, trillions and quadrillions I get the numbers mixed up all the time. Passportguy (talk) 15:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Long term, the inflation for the last 6 months has gone from approximately 40 to 40x10¹². That suggests we can add two zero each month. Thus: 100x100^months% inflation (10¹⁴% since August 2008), gives an annual rate of 10²⁶%. I prefer to use long term based figures. Short unsustained fluctuations are hardly accurate or representative of anything in reality. Also I prefer not to name the numbers due to the possibility of confusion over which name scale is being used. HumphreyW (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With thursdays article [2] claiming 100 trillion per dollar, we have a rate of around 42% since the 19th. Which is close enough to the 35% value above. The 400 trillion stands out from this series. Inflation seem to be 35-40% per day. It's still nowhere near Hungarian numbers, but it has on the other hand been hyperinflation for two years now, and the Pengö only lasted one year. Despite way lower inflation rates, the total increase under hyperinflation is around 3x10²²%, and the Hungarian total inflation seems to have been around 4.5x10²⁸. Althogh that's a whopping million times difference, at 35%/day inflation rate that will only take 46 days to reach. And it also indicates that the doubling and tripling of official rates is an attempt to catch up, not because the real inflation rate has mushroomed. That is probably good news as it indicates a willingness to face facts that has been very lacking so far. --OpenFuture (talk) 13:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any ideas why the RBZ is no longer publishing official rates on its website? --Tango (talk) 22:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No idea, but I did notice a previous edit of this discussion page had some allegedly privately circulated numbers by the RBZ. Given the regularity of the numbers I suspect the RBZ is now applying a mathematical formula that automatically sets the exchange rate but are trying not to stoke the parallel market by publishing figures that admit an ever-weakening Zimbabwe dollar. --24.80.118.164 (talk) 00:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Xe.com does not publish rates too and it is still said "1.00 USD = 925,825.00 ZWD", as they are the rates from the RBZ. 221.126.123.76 (talk) 10:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is an article "Zimbabwe dollar abandoned", dated 6th January stating that the dollarisation (or rand-isation) has reached a point that that virtually nobody is using ZWD. For example:

"Almost everyone in the country is now buying and selling in foreign currency, rendering the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless on the domestic market."

"Even bank queues that characterized the daily lives of people last year are disappearing, as more people turn to using either the South African rand or U.S. dollars."

Also here (is this a government newspaper?) "leaving banks with piles of local currency that most people are no longer keen to use" and "adviser to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, .... “By now we need to come up with a new currency as the current one has become meaningless,” he said. The South African rand and the American dollar have almost elbowed the local dollar in most monetary transactions."

Has it reached the point where the ZWD will soon be history? TiffaF (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an interesting article (dated today, Jan 7th) that mentions the cash rate as 100 billion to 1 and the interbank rate as 98 million to 1. --Composure1 (talk) 18:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been watching Yahoo's currency rate pages and saw it climbing from 925,000 to 14,000,000 lately. Because it's not from the official bank, I didn't post it here. I regret it though, as Yahoo's page only gives me a 5 days archive. Marc NL (talk) 06:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found a website that appears to still be quoting an official rate on a daily basis. Perhaps it can be used on this page? Market watch. --Composure1 (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's quoting a rate that seems similar to the official rate, it doesn't say what rate it is meant to be and doesn't say where it is getting the numbers from. I don't think it is much use to us. --Tango (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New official rates were published on the RBZ site today, the rate is now 9,326,444.00 Z$ per US$. Passportguy (talk) 10:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

January 7th 2009: Current change US$ vs ZBW $ is: 88,25 Quadrillion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.54.51.150 (talk) 21:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other sources contradict this. Reuters claim 33 dollars for the new 100 trillion dollar bill. http://af.reuters.com/article/zimbabweNews/idAFLG40666820090116 --OpenFuture (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The new cash rate according to SW Radio Africa is: "ZW$ has given way to US$ and everything is very expensive". Can we include that in our table? --Tango (talk) 03:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, as it isn't very specific. You could include it in the history text secton though. Passportguy (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I know, that was (at least partially) in jest. It could go in the notes column of the table, I guess. --Tango (talk) 19:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

$20,000,000,000 and $50,000,000,000 banknotes will be introduced on Monday. See http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/10/zimbawe.currency/index.html. At current official rates the $50 billion note will be worth more than US$5000 !! I really wonder what the people setting these rates are thinking .... Passportguy (talk) 15:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That has been covered over at Banknotes of Zimbabwe. As soon as I get the scans I'll put them up. --Marianian (talk) 17:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! That is 200,000 t.-pengo and 500,000 t.-pengo notes. The RBZ is continue to break record of the highest denomination banknote ever issued. Jimm36 (talk) 08:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With Mr Gono as head of the bank, I have read some articles indicaing that he intends to keep printing new banknotes for now. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 10:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hungarian denominations are not clear for me - what is highiest denomination in 10^n notation? However Z3$ 50B is only 5*10^23 Z1$ in comparsion with Pi144 Yugoslavian note equals 10^27 Y1D. (Y1D = Dinar 1989) 83.14.232.140 (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The highest Hungarian denomination issued in Pengö was 10²¹ but if we also tak Adopengö (highest denomination 10⁷) then it is 2*10²⁸. --Alexmagnus2 (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree.The 2*10²⁸ pengo note was used for half forint when forint introduced.

Found an article with a photo of the new $50 billion note: Wall Street Journal --Buu (talk) 12:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is now a ZW$10 Trillion note ($10,000,000,000,000, or $10¹³), with $20, $50 and $100 Trillion($10¹⁴) "planned"! This is from the Zimbabwe Herald, so it must have been officially announced. I have just added these denominations to the info box in the article.TiffaF (talk) 08:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At an official rate of ~ 15 million, the $100 trillion note is supposedly worth more than 6,000,000 US$ ! That surely must be a world record for an official rate ! Passportguy (talk) 08:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which begs the question, for what transactions does the official rate apply? For whom (person or institution) will the RBZ change money ZWD to USD (or vice versa) at this rate? Whoever he/she/they is/are, they could make a killing on arbitrage. I suspect the answer is nobody, so the official rate is purely an official fiction.TiffaF (talk) 08:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not completely fictional, as it is used in some government business. For example : Gold mining companies are paid for their gold (which they must sell to the government) at the official rate. Since the resulting price (paid in Z$ converted from the US$ based gold price at the offcial rate) that yields does not cover costs, many if not most Zimabwean mining companies have ceased production. Naturally the RBZ will not sell you foreign currency at the official rate, it only buys it at that rate. Passportguy (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mugabe and his cronies can get foreign currency at that rate, I believe, as yes, they can make a killing out of it. The gold companies get part of their money in foreign currency, I think, the rest of converted to Z$ at an nonsense rate (so it worthless) - of course, the RBZ rarely actually gives the gold companies any of the money they are owed, which is why they are all going out of business. --Tango (talk) 15:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the ISO code on the page is listed as "ZWR" after the August 1st devaluation, but is that actually correct? Although ISO did issue them this code, the official Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe website still lists ZWD, and I found no official statements saying they actually switched to ZWR at any point. --Composure1 (talk) 21:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it from this talk page (or maybe it was the images of the notes talk page), the RBZ was unable to incorporate the ISO code change and stuck with an older designation. --24.80.120.179 (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7832601.stm. 10 trillion, 20 trillion, 50 trillion and 100 trillion. I wonder why such a gap between 50 billion (currently highest note) and 10 trillion (lowest new one)...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The relaxation of withdrawal restrictions may signal the need for big notes. --Marianian (talk) 14:39, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think they haver finally realized that there is no point in issuing low denomination notes. People still have quad- and quintillions in their bank accounts and until that money is somehow drained from those accounts the Z$ will never stabilize. Passportguy (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That article suggests an exchange rate of about Z$3 trillion to US$1 - that's several orders of magnitude higher than our table currently shows. Should we consider that a reliable rate and update it? I think we're at the point when there aren't really any reliable rates since the rate changes so rapidly and, with the economy almost completely dollarised, the trading volume for forex must be pretty low (relative to the speed it's changing). --Tango (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How did the people get quintillions in their bank accounts? What kind of interest rates are they paying? Heian-794 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what interest rates regular bank accounts pay (a few hundred percent, I think, so effectively nothing), but you used to be able to get stupid rates of return on the stock market before it was shut down. And remember, people have been receiving large sums of money in wages (while the public sector may be paying next to nothing much of the time, I believe much of the private sector has pegged wages to the USD or similar) while only being able to withdraw a minuscule portion of it, so they've all been saving up. Quintillions may be rare, but I expect quadrillions is very common. --Tango (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People still have massive amounts of money back from when the stock market was still open. People were paying quintillions & hexillions, so anyone who sold their stocks before the stock market was shut down will have huge sums in their bank accounts. Passportguy (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to SWRadio:

Zim inflation rate according to financial magazine, Forbes Asia is 6500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% 65 followed by 107 zeros. Prices double every 24.7 hours

This figure looks like 6.5 Quinquatrigintillion to me; or if you prefer: 6.5 35-illion!, though articles I have read stated the figure to be "6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion" which is 6.5 (16+19)-illion, looks like not many people know about vingintillion and beyond!

Though I would like to see how they actually calculated that rate., since with my calculation; assuming that prices has been doubling at exactly 24 hour intervals, takes more than a year days to achieve! (368.15 days to be exact) Rubycored (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. That's equivalent to a monthly rate of... 79.6 billion percent, which happens to be the last monthly rate from the Hanke index. So they've extrapolated from that, which is absurd, and the figures it's based on are irrelevant anyway. Oh dear. —Raven42 (talk) 08:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

358.15 days is less than a year... A year is 365 days... --Tango (talk) 10:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

whoops; typoed it from 368... Rubycored (talk) 10:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's only marginally longer than a year, and considering you rounded 24.7 down to 24, it seems to be within your margin of error. --Tango (talk) 12:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like to compute the inflation using the banknotes in circulation as a reference, as in terms of "on the ground" prices, it's when there is more money in circulation that prices actually go up. For example, assuming on February 1st the 100 Trillion bill will be worth as much as the 10 Billion bill was on January 1st, that's an increase of 10,000X monthly (i.e. 1 million percent inflation per month). So yearly that's 10,000^12 times increase, so 1 followed by 48 zeroes (in percentage terms it's 10^50 percent). --Composure1 (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Banknotes (especially in the case of Zimbabwe), aren't really a good indication of inflation rates, and they are issued pretty much a whim.

However the figures you quoted get pretty close, as in terms of prices, the Irish times [3] states that in the last two weeks bread prices rose from 30 billion to 30 trillion. That would correspond to a semi-monthly rate of 100,000 %, a monthly inflation rate of 100,000,000 % and an annual rate of a whopping 1x10⁷⁴ %, or a 100 trevingtillion percent. Passportguy (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to ascertain which the worst inflation ever was. There are two candiates : The Hungarian pengo and the Z$. There are a number of question which arose :

1) What was the final exchange rate of the pengo to the forint. The wikipedia article says 4*10²⁹ and is widely quoted around the internet. However the Encyclopaedia Britannica [4] states that the rate was 400 quintillion, i.e. 4*10²⁰. I can't find another source on the internet which is reliable. Possibly someone has other printed dictionaries at home and can look this up ?

Factoring in the fact that the forint was worth 4 times as much as the pre-inflation pengo, the total hyperinflationary effect was 1.6*10³⁰ or 1.6*10²¹ respectively.

2) The Z$ currently stands at a rate of 1.3*10²⁶ Z1$ for one 1US$ - taking into account that the pre-hyperinflation rate was roughly 50 Z$ to 1 US$, the hyperinflationary effect is 2.6*10²⁴.

However listed stock prices are still in the quadrillion Z3$, i.e. octillions of Z1$ (e.g. [5] or [6]). If the stock market is dollarized, how does one take the fact into account that quadrillions are essentially being exchanged for one US dollar ??

Passportguy (talk) 16:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What stock market? Wasn't it closed down? You need to be careful measuring inflation by currency devaluation, since that depends on how long the currency was inflating too. Usually hyperinflations are ranked by their peak inflation. We have no useful figures for the peak inflation in Zimbabwe (although, presumably it hasn't peaked). --Tango (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try and explain that : Currenty the ZSE is considering reopening and trading in US$. The last price for African Sun was 15 quadrillion Z$. Let's assume that the current value of the stock on the London stock exchange is the equivalent of 1 US$. If trading were to resume tomorrow in US$, the price in Harare would also be around 1 US$. Thus, if you bought one share of African Sun on Nov 22, you have gotten 1 US$ for 15 quadrillion Z$. Given the fact that the current cash rate is 15 trillion, this amounts to a defacto currency revaluation for stock/bond Zim Dollars of 1000:1.

This problem may indeed be the reason the ZSE may not reopen until the cash value of the Z$ finally reaches quadrillions, which at current inflation rates should be in 3-4 weeks.

Perhaps. The stock market exchange rate was massively inflated by market manipulations (which were possible because it was such a meaningless rate since no-one accepted anything other than cash for transactions and you couldn't turn your shares into cash), they can't just turn it back on again and let it carry on as it was. --Tango (talk) 19:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Btw : I would dispute that hyperinflations are ranked by their peak inflation rate. The measure of that varies hugely, depending on how small/large the time increments are that you choose. It could conceivibly be daily, weeky, fortnightly, monthly, trimesterly, yearly etc. Depending on which you choose, you'd get very different results on which hyperflation was the worst in history. Usually people look at the overall effect of a complete hyperinflationary period from the time a currecy goes into hyperinflation until it finally reaches stablity again. Thus we refer to the Yugoslav hyperinflation (90s), Hungarian hy. (45/46), German hy. (22/23) etc., not to the "German Mark hyperinflation 2nd week of August 1922". But naturally, if you wish, you could rank anything by any method you choose. Passportguy (talk) 19:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you get very difference results? Obviously you need to use the same time period with each currency, but is the ranking by month-on-month inflation (say) different from the ranking by day-by-day inflation (say)? If you try annual inflation, you may get a problem since some hyperinflations don't last much more than a year, but I think a month or less will give pretty much the same rankings. --Tango (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to repeat my question under 1). Does anyone have a source for this figure ?? Passportguy (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be some kind of confusion with the names of numbers? Quintillion is how much in the Encyclopaedia Britannica? 10¹⁸ or 10³⁰? HumphreyW (talk) 09:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I assumed at first too. However a long-scale 400 quintillion would be (4x10³²) which would translate into 400 nonillion on the short scale, not 400 octillion (4x10²⁹) ! So there would still a discrepancy. The long scale equivalent of 4x10²⁹ is 400 quadrillard/400 thousand quadrillion. Passportguy (talk) 12:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the official rate on the Wikipedia page has not been updated recently, but the RBZ website is still posting daily updates. It's interesting to note that since yesterday the value jumped almost tenfold! Yesterday it was 44 million yesterday, and now it says 415,888, 889. [7]. I wonder if they are planning on soon having it match the old OMIR rate, which would allow them to dollarize and reopen the stock market. --Composure1 (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately the RBZ site is almost constantly down, which is making it hard to update the official rates. The rate you quoted (415,888,889.00) was for Jan 26 ? I'll add that to the main page then.

But even at the new rate, the official rate is still only 1/100,000th of the parallel rate (40 trillion), so it is still completely ridiciulous.

As for a the stock market re-opening, there was an article on zimbabwesituation today that negotiations over the re-opening had broken down, as the government is apparently not willing to allow trading in US dollars. Passportguy (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't load the above site and it said, "HTTP 500 內部伺服器發生錯誤" then I can't find them Jimm36 (talk) 15:52, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Today's official rate is 1,407,917,306 - which is roughly three times what it was yesterday. Passportguy (talk) 23:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And today it's 3,429,836,806; slightly over twice again. The guess that they are trying to get the official rate to have some connection to reality to be able to open markets again seems reasonable. --OpenFuture (talk) 11:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At this rate, it will still take weeks to catch up... --Tango (talk) 17:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yahoo! Finance (both the UK and US sites) have trouble with displaying the currency rate (OR the Central Bank has slashed a dozen zeros): here Marc NL (talk) 18:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It said, "1 USD = 1,515.1 ZWD as of 30 Jan" 221.126.122.13 (talk) 07:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7859033.stm

Looks like Zim$ is walking into history for once and for all. Rubycored (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We can except the exchange rate to skyrocket now - demand for Zimbabwean dollars is going to drop to pretty much nothing, and supply will presumably keep increasing since Mugabe's regime doesn't know any better, so basic supply and demand says the value of a Zim$ will drop substantially. I predict at least half a dozen noughts will be added on over the next month. --Tango (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll keep on the tabs for the new notes, even if they issue an infinity dollar note. --Marianian (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Today's Zimbabwe Herald, in its article on the new budget states "The United Nations exchange rate will apply where conversion to Zimdollar or vice versa may be necessary.". If you google "United Nations exchange rate" you end up at the UN site here, which includes excel spreadsheets with the following rates:

01 Jan 2009: 35,000,000,000,000,000

29 Jan 2009: 150,000,000,000,000,000

These rates exceed by 3 zeroes the 30-40,000,000,000,000 (30-40 trillion) the most recent sources quote as black-market rates. Should we now quote these as "Official" rates? TiffaF (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for posting this ! We can't call them official rate, as the only official rate is set by the RBZ, even though in practical terms that rate has very limited value.

As for the UN rate : I've back-checked these rates, and it somewhat seems to be a continuation of the OMIR/non-cash rates. I'll but it into the main article in the former "OMIR" column. Passportguy (talk) 12:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even if we assume that the 4x10²⁹ exchange figure for the forint is correct - which I still can't find a source for btw ! - then the Z$ has leveled with the pengö in terms for zeros : Taking the UN rate of 1.5x10¹⁷ + the Z2$ zeros (1x10¹⁰) + the Z1$ zeros (1x10³), the rate in terms of Z1$ is now 1.5x10³⁰.
However, in terms of inflationary effect the pengö still has a slight edge, as the forint has only a quarter of the value of a pre-hyperinflation pengö, while a Z4$ introduced at above rate would be worth roughly 50 times a Z1$ of 2003. Thus, the inflationary effect, adjusted for these values, for the pengö stands at 1.6x10³⁰, while the Zimbabwe Dollar is "only" at 3x10²⁸. However, after price controls are scrapped on Sunday, we're almost certain to finally reach the Hungarian record in the coming weeks. Passportguy (talk) 13:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is the current exchange rate in terms of the first dollar? i.e. the one that was equal to US$1 at an earlier point. 83.146.12.192 (talk) 20:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The current UN exchange rate in terms of Z1$ is 1.5 nonillion (1.5x10³⁰ or 1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). For cash it is "only" 1 octillion or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Passportguy (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reuters is reporting that another 12 zeroes have been knocked off the Zimdollar. —Raven42 (talk) 14:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Here we go into round 4 ! With Sunday's parallel rate at 250 trillion [8], we are back at "only" 250 Z4$ to the US$.

Although I'm a bit confused, as they published an official rate of 12,336,416,667 today - surely that can' be Z4$ ! When does this take effect, today or tomorrow ? Passportguy (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Btw : Obviously the Z4$ is curently not the world lesast valued curency. Anyone want to risk a prediction when it'll be again ? Although - on second thought - taking the UN rate, it still is, that rate is still at 150,000 : 1. Passportguy (talk) 15:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This makes Z3$ the shortest surviving currency in Zimbabwean history (lifetime=6 months). But not in the world history (where the record belongs to Yugoslav 1994 dinar, which survived just for three weeks - maybe there were some currencies with a shorter lifespan but this one holds a record among those which "died" of inflation). I guess this record will never be broken in Zimbabwe, as monetary policy statements are published once in 6 months...--Alexmagnus2 (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There have been very short lived currencies, but previously they've all been intentionally short lived, haven't they? Introducing an interim currency in order to fix hyperinflation is a well known technique. Z3$ was never intended to be an interim currency. My bet is that nothing particularly interesting will happen with Z4$, now USD can be used legally no-one is going to be using the Zim$. The exchange rate will skyrocket, since there will be no demand for the currency, but it will be meaningless number since nothing will be for sale in Zim$. --Tango (talk) 15:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gono has conconcted some interesting new measures [9] to keep the Z4$ going.

• The ZSE will be allowed to trade in foreign currency, but will be subject to a 1.5 % tax plus the stipulation that a further 3.5 % of all sales be exchanged into Z4$ at the ridiculous interbank exchange rate (which at today's rate values 1 Z4$ at more than 8 US$ !)
• "Purchase of goods in foreign exchange vouchers" are to be introduced, whatever that may be. Passportguy (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The government doesn't have enough foreign currency to pay people in US dollars, so they are falling back on their standard approach - printing more. I suspect we'll end up with separate prices for vouchers and real dollar bills, since the value of the vouchers is dependant on the government's ability to exchange them for US dollars (I'm not sure what the system will be for such redemption, but the designated shops must have some way to turn them into actual money). If people don't have faith in the government being able to pay them back, the vouchers will have less than face-value. My prediction - in a month's time, a US$1 voucher will be worth 40 US cents. --Tango (talk) 17:19, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get this: at the official rate that would be 1.2 cents, and since it came into force with immediate effect it could be the highest valued currency unit. --Marianian (talk) 18:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So we're now in the situation where the Zimbabwean dollar is both the highest and lowest valued currency unit, depending on which exchange rate you take? I love Zimbabwe! --Tango (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This official rate is not a real rate but it's highly overvalued that it should not be included in the list, although 1 Kuwaiti dinar = 41 637 696 324 ZWR or 4.2 cents in new currency. Jimm36 (talk) 10:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gono apparently has realized that the official rate was getting ridiculous and has set today's rate at 22.00 Z4$, which is still less than 10 % of the last parallel rate but at least it's an improvement from the 0.004 % on the 2nd ! Passportguy (talk) 10:21, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't seem to find anything about a new ISO code, and can't even think of a new third letter that would make sense! ("New" and "Revalued" have been used; some kind of sequential thing using A, B, C... wouldn't work as the 4th letter of the alphabet is "D". There's no other dollar-using country with a name that starts with Z, so maybe they could lose the W in the middle and go to something like "ZDD" (Zimbabwe Dollar, D-Series), to be followed by ZDE or ZED if a 5th dollar is needed? (A better idea would surely be to stop using the name "dollar" and call the ever-collapsing currency something else!) Heian-794 (talk) 13:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An even better idea would be to stop printing excessive amounts of money... --Tango (talk) 13:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Naw. That's wouldn't be much fun now would it ? Plus certain people in the government would no longer stand to gain from buying Zim$ at black market rates and selling them back to their own central bank at official rates. Passportguy (talk) 13:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about "ZWF" (Zimbabwe dollar - Fourth Series). However this is largely mute, as ZWR and ZWN never came into use either. Passportguy (talk) 13:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/117/ARTICLE/4223/2009-02-02.html gives details of the baknotes, which will be $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500. The new $500 banknote is equal to $500 trillion Z3$. Passportguy (talk) 15:25, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FYI : The RBZ has published a picture featuring the new notes at http://www.rbz.co.zw/pdfs/newnotes.jpg Passportguy (talk) 16:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like how the values (numbers in the middle of the notes) are right-justified so that they can easily use many, many digits. All the zeroes on the Z3$ bills were starting to get really cramped! Heian-794 (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess they're finally prepared this time to issue Z4$s in quadrillions of dollars this time eh?Rubycored (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would say at the moment of late 2,Feb.,the RBZ's official 4th dollar rate is 0.012336416667 to 1 USD.It is truely highest valued currency unit in the world.The rate went up to 22 to 1 USd at 3,Feb. is another story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.137.151.250 (talk) 00:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 12.3 billion rate was the last rate of the Z3$. The 12.3 billion Z3$ rate was never re-issued for the Z4$, the Z4$ never become the highest valued currency. Instead a new rate was issued on Feb 3 at 22.00, a massive devaluation to get the rate more in line with the real value of the currency. Passportguy (talk) 10:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like an almost 1800-fold devaluation between the 2nd and 3rd February. Is that a record change for a currency in one day? Tonybourtonville (talk) 11:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]