Common Monetary Area

The Common Monetary Area links South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini into a monetary union, growing out of the Rand Monetary Area formally established in December 1974 and reorganized under its current name in July 1986. The Southern African Customs Union includes all Common Monetary Area members along with Botswana, which left the shared currency arrangement in 1976 when it introduced the pula in order to run an independent monetary policy. The South African rand is legal tender throughout the Common Monetary Area, while Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini each issue their own currency, the loti, the Namibian dollar and the lilangeni, at par with the rand, and monetary policy across the area continues to be strongly shaped by the South African Reserve Bank.