Thousands of customers of the ‘collapsed’ Twiga Bancorp Limited have been told to calm down as they await the restoration of key banking services including access to their accounts from Umoja Switch, a network of smaller local banks sharing financial services infrastructure like automated teller machines (ATMs) at lesser individual cost.
Umoja Switch executive director Danford Mbilinyi told a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday that they have been receiving anxious queries from Twiga Bancorp customers over the fate of their money since the bank’s operations were taken over by the government late last week, and whether they can still access withdrawal and deposit services via Umoja Switch.
“I call upon all customers of the bank to remain patient as we await further directives from BoT. But for now we have stopped offering (Twiga Bancorp) services” Mbilinyi said.
Twiga Bancorp is among 30 member banks of the Umoja Switch network, and has about 20,000 customers who use Umoja ATM cards.
The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) on Friday took over the bank’s administration after pronouncing it to be under capitalized, suspending its management and board of directors and appointing a statutory manager to handle its affairs for the time being.
The measures were taken according to powers bestowed to BoT under section 56 (1) (g and i) and 56 (2) (a)-(d) of the Banking and Financial Institution Act of 2006.
According to Mbilinyi, Twiga Bancorp had faced problems relating to its capital structure to serve customers throughout Tanzania for a very long time.
He confirmed that the bank won’t be operating normal business for atleast one week after the BoT takeover, during which relevant arrangements for future operations are made.
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