Mozambique: Cenbank dictates COVID protection measures – Carta

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Mozambique: Cenbank dictates COVID protection measures – Carta

4:29 CAT | 12 Feb 2021

The Bank of Mozambique issued on Monday[ [8 February] a circular letter which entered into force on Tuesday [9 February] directing commercial banks to implement specific measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The three-page document details 10 measures that are to be put into practice by all financial and credit institutions operating in the country.

The first item in the circular instructs all banks and financial institutions to set up schedules for the cleaning of their equipment, including counters, ATM booths and payment kiosks (remote or located in branches), service desks, handles and knobs and other surfaces. These plans should be made available for easy monitoring.

The regulator of the Mozambican financial system also requires banking institutions to provide products for washing or sanitising the hands of their employees and clients in each branch, ATM booth and payment kiosk, according to the guidelines defined by the health authorities.

The Bank of Mozambique also stipulates that financial institutions should ensure their customers wash or disinfect their hands before entering the branches and after using ATM and payment kiosks.

But that is not all.

“Compliance with the [recommended by health authorities] interpersonal distance of at least two meters, inside the branches and outside for access to their branches; measuring clients’ body temperature before entering their branches; the reduction in the number of clients and time spent by clients in bank branches and ATM booths in carrying out transactions, for information requests or any acts, in order to avoid crowding,” is also demanded.

The central bank directs that “the service of financial consumers and the public, in general, within branches” must be limited to “the time strictly necessary”, to which end it instructs financial institutions to “adopt measures to avoid agglomerations or concentration of people and risk of contagion and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic among its employees and financial customers”.

Available for perusal on the central bank’s official web page, the document also recommends the mandatory use of masks and visors by employees of banking institutions and customers.

It also specifically instructs banks to determine the maximum capacity of their premises and post this information outside the establishment, as determined by Decree 2/2021 of February 4.

The Bank expressly places responsibility for compliance with these measures on the financial and credit institutions, and stresses that non-compliance with these measures and others established in the circular is punishable under the terms of the applicable legislation.

By Evaristo Chilingue

The circular letter, signed by Administrator Jamal Omar on Monday [8 February], entered into force on Tuesday [ 9 February] ,reads the document which you may access , in Portuguese, HERE.

Source: Carta de Moçambique