Most Nosso Banco clients have not applied for their money – AIM report

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Most Nosso Banco clients have not applied for their money – AIM report

9:52 CAT | 18 Jan 2017

CoM (file photo)

To date the vast majority of depositors in the failed Mozambican retail bank, “O Nosso Banco” (“Our Bank”) have failed to apply for the return of their deposits.

According to a release from the Deposits Guarantee Fund (FGD), which is operated by the Bank of Mozambique, by 9 January only 21 per cent of the 5,085 depositors who are entitled to receive their full deposits back had applied for them.

Nosso Banco collapsed in November. The Bank of Mozambique intervened on 11 November to strip it of its licence to trade, and ordered its liquidation.

It was a small bank, with only three branches, all of them in Maputo, and so its liquidation had no impact on the rest of the Mozambican financial system.

The FGD will return in full the deposits of any client in a failed bank, provided that the deposit is no more than 20,000 meticais (about 287 US dollars). This compensation scheme only applies to individual depositors who hold accounts denominated in meticais. It does not cover corporate clients, or accounts held in foreign currency.

The FGD statement said that 5,085 Nosso Banco depositors are covered by the scheme, but so far only 1,071 have applied for their money. In monetary terms, the figures look better – the total amount to be reimbursed is 15,634,210 meticais, and so far depositors have claimed 8,535,739 meticais (54.6 per cent).

The FGD has been paying out the money at the Nosso Banco branches every working day since 21 November, and says that the process has run smoothly.

But now there is less than a month to go before the cut-off date of 9 February, and still over 4,000 depositors have not claimed their money. Any depositors who miss this deadline will have to contact the Liquidation Commission, which is working on collecting Nosso Banco’s debts, selling off its assets, and paying the creditors.

The FGD urges the depositors to act now, rather than waiting until the last moment and causing unnecessary queues at the Nosso Banco branches.

Source: AIM