DPC mulls offshore investments

THE Deposit Protection Corporation (DPC) says it is considering investing offshore to protect its portfolio from domestic economic shocks.
Established in 2003 under the Deposit Protection Act, DPC provides deposit insurance to eligible depositors in the event of a bank failure.
Gift Chirozva, DPC’s former acting chief executive, told shareholders at a recent annual general meeting that the plan to invest offshore is still under consideration.
“This will be a process that requires exchange control approvals, and we would need to engage the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to ensure that we are allowed to invest offshore.
“Over and above the exchange control approvals, there will also be the need for safeguards to ensure that should an investment be put outside the country, there will be processes that would facilitate its return to Zimbabwe should there be some challenges in the jurisdiction in which it has been invested, or if there are challenges, there should be some free transferability of the deposit back to the country,” he said.

Chairperson Agmos Moyo said the institution has just not been sitting on the money.
“We have actually tried to make sure that we have a balanced portfolio of fixed assets in the form of properties that we have purchased that we are trying to drive income from just to make sure that we are properly rich,” he said.
“We are also participating in other prescribed assets from the ministry of Finance, like the gold coins we also invested there and all the other instruments that have been approved by the ministry in terms of prescribed assets.”
The company recently said it needed about US$25 million to fully compensate depositors of the People’s Own Saving Bank for value losses incurred in 2019, when the Zimdolar was reintroduced.
The government provided US$400 000 through Kuvimba Mining House to make up for the value loss suffered by small depositors as a result of the exchange rate movement as of February 20, 2019.
The tranche was distributed to qualified depositors in Deposit Taking Microfinance Institutions (DTMFIs) based on the resources available.
According to instructions from the ministry of Finance and Economic Development, the window for submitting DTMFIs claims closed on July 10, 2022 as a result of the weak uptake.
“As at July 20, 2022, all eligible depositors who submitted their claims were duly compensated by their respective DTMFIs. On aggregate, the DPC processed 917 DTMFI claims worth US$83 359, leaving a balance of about US$316 641,” DPC said in its 2022 annual report.
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