Business Reporter
THE Deposit Protection Corporation will transfer $2 million worth of Treasury Bills issued to tobacco farmers under the central banks tobacco retention scheme to other banks, as previous holder, Allied bank, is in liquidation. Unlike operational banks, Allied Bank is no longer in a position to hold the TBs to maturity. As such, the liquidator is asking the beneficiaries to nominate banking institutions of their choice to which their proportional ownership of the TBs will be transferred for custodianship until their maturity.
Four out of 294 tobacco farmers and foreign currency account holders, representing a consolidated value of $1,7 million, have been issued with Treasury Bills in terms of beneficiaries who had accounts with Allied Bank.
The TBs will be transferred to a custodian bank nominated by the farmers following the liquidation of Allied Bank. They are part of the $30 million TBs issued by the Government to several local banks in 2014.
Allied Bank Liquidator, Deposit Protection Corporation, said that it is in the process of transferring the treasury bills to their approved ultimate beneficiaries and has requested them to provide the requisite custodian details.
“A consolidated TB valued $1 735 200 was issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to Allied Bank (in liquidation) for custodianship for the ultimate benefit of RBZ identified tobacco farmers and FCA holders,” said DPC.
The treasury bills with tenure of between two years and five years were meant to counterbalance amounts in arrears to tobacco farmers under the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Tobacco Retention Scheme.
The Treasury Bills annual final maturity is in March 2019. The TBs coupon rate is 2 percent. The interest on TBs was converted to TBs “Baby Coupons” with a rate of 3 percent.
Besides Allied Bank, other financial services providers who received the TBs included Stanbic Bank, Standard chartered Bank, ZB, FBC and CBZ Bank, Agribank Bank, NMB Bank, Metbank, Ecobank, MBCA and Barclays.