The National Social Security Authority (NSSA) is mulling merging financial institutions in which it holds shareholding to enable them to meet the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s (RBZ) new $100 million minimum capital requirements.
Report By Victoria Mtomba BUSINESS Reporter
Sources close to the development told NewsDay that merging the institutions in which the pension fund had interest was one of the options being explored.
NSSA holds investments in FBC Bank, ZB Bank, Interfin Bank Limited, FBC Building Society and Capital Bank Corporation.
The authority is constituted and established in terms of the NSSA Act and is tasked by the government to provide social security.
“We have already come up with a strategy. Generally, when we look at commercial banks, there is talk to rationalise them,” one of the sources said.
“Building societies don’t pay taxes and we have capacity to merge them. There is a definite plan so that there is compliance with the central bank.” In an interview early this month, RBZ governor Gideon Gono said most financial institutions had submitted viable consolidation for mergers and outright capitalisation.
Early last year, NSSA gained control of Renaissance Merchant Bank, now Capital Bank, after acquiring an 84% stake in a deal worth $24 million.
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The bank was placed under curatorship in June 2011 following investigations that uncovered systematic abuse of depositors’ funds, high level of non-performing insider loans and related party exposures that included a $9,8 million loan to former chief executive officer Patterson Timba.
NSSA is the country’s leading investor in property.
