THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono says stakeholders and depositors of Standard Chartered bank should not panic as the central bank had no plans of withdrawing its banking licence.
Report by Business Reporter
The call follows threats by the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (Nieeb) that the bank would be closed for failing to comply with empowerment regulations.
“It has come to the attention of the Reserve Bank that there are signs of instability and anxiety among stakeholders, especially depositors who do business with Standard Chartered Bank Zimbabwe Limited,” Gono said in a statement copied to Finance minister Tendai Biti, chief secretary to the President and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, and Nieeb chairman Mike Nyambuya
“All stakeholders of the bank and indeed, of other banks are hereby advised not to panic or wantonly withdraw their funds from the bank as the central bank, which is the sole authority which issues and withdraws banking licences from players in the Zimbabwean financial sector, has not signaled any move in the direction intimated by Nieeb nor in any other way suggesting that Standard Chartered Bank will lose its business licence for any reason in the near future.”
Gono said the central bank had no plans of violating the RBZ Act especially that of fostering liquidity, solvency, stability and proper functioning of Zimbabwe’s financial system.
“We have not and have no intention of violating any of the above statutory functions and specifically, we have not given any advice to the State which supports the position announced by Nieeb officials other than that whatever we do as the government, the action(s) must be legal, measured and for the benefit of the broad-based majority of Zimbabweans,” he added.
“Destabilising a large bank such as Standard Chartered has serious systemic consequences that can lead to unintended results which are opposite to those that we would have hoped to achieve.”
