Last week the $2 bond note died despite the RBZ’s attempts to resuscitate it, it remains dead as no one will take it. Now there is confusion and anger in the market as more and more people are now refusing all bond notes even the $5 bond notes saying that they have no use for the currency. Adding to the confusion however, a lot of traders are still accepting $5 Zimbabwean dollar notes as long as they don’t have the words “bond notes”.

We will only take your $5 notes if they don’t have the words bond notes on them.

One informal trader at Mbare Musika. A phrase repeated by everyone else we tried to pay using the note

To make it even more confusing a lot of other traders are now no longer making a distinction between real $5 Zimbabwean notes and $5 bond notes (except for the words Bond notes these two look identical). The trickle down effect has been that more and more people are no longer accepting the money leaving those who had large quantities of this money stuck with it sparking anger.