Zimbabwe’s central bank on Friday outlawed one of the last functioning parts of the country’s ravaged financial system, hampering businesses already brought to the brink of collapse by rapidly worsening hyperinflation.

Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and a close ally of President Robert Mugabe, suspended electronic transfers between banks on the grounds that they were “being used for illicit foreign exchange deals” and to charge excessive prices for goods and services. “We have no option but to take this drastic measure in order to maintain sanity in the financial system,” Mr Gono was quoted as telling state radio.