What exactly is an ADLA License?

According to their official documents, and Authorized Dealer with Limited Authority is “a financial services provider not necessarily licensed under the Banking Act [Chapter 3 | Page 24:20] but authorized by the central bank in terms of the Exchange Control Act to buy and sell foreign currency and carry out small value person to person cross border remittances through money transfer systems.” While InnBuck’s general business model of storing money in a wallet and sending it to someone may not directly seem like it’s the buying and selling of foreign currency, the fact that it takes a commission/has charges, and allows this money to be transferred to other users makes it qualify as a remittance service and buyer and seller of foreign currency aka USD. The grey area of InnBucks’ business model is perhaps what let the company operate so long without the license(if no other factors were involved of course) and clearly them not completing their registration as an ADLA (which also requires a registration fee of USD $2500) is what RBZ has decided to use as the lynch mechanism to shut down their operations.

If InnBucks’ remittance service is restored, might it come back having changed?

Based on our knowledge, it doesn’t seem like there is any reason for InnBucks to change it’s rates or commissions if/when it makes a return, at least based on what the documents for it operating as an ADLA. Now of course the company might have other reasons for changing it’s pricing strategy and business model in future , but at the moment we can’t accurately speak on that just yet.

So is InnBucks’ money transfer and remittance service gone for good? Likely not. When and how it will come back is likely the bigger question, but from what we can tell , on the surface this seems like it’s a resolvable matter. After all other companies like MetBank were slapped with similar restrictions. The other big problem right now seems to be InnBucks handling the PR nightmare that this has brought them, especially since no one likes hearing funny stories about their money. Add in that a fake Twitter account has surfaced (that’s honestly going a little too far even by the standards we usually support from troll accounts) and you can see why Simbisa Brands and InnBucks are having such a hard time. Hopefully this all dies down though, and we don’t have to keep making jokes about 2 year 2 Piecer vouchers instead of getting your money back.

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