By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –

THE Bank of Zambia (BoZ) is investigating a named bank for allegedly charging clients on their savings.
BoZ head of communication, Kanguya Mayondi warned that punitive action would follow once this abrogation by the bank was confirmed.
“You can be rest assured that through the Bank Supervision I am going to ensure that we look actively into this practice that our colleagues have engaged in as regards charging on savings so that we know whether they are operating within the regulatory policy or not.
“We would like to assure you that as long as they are operating outside the armpit of regulatory policy then they should have a good reason and must explain that to the Central Bank,” Mr Mayondi said.
He said this during a Financial Literacy week media training in Chisamba held on Monday.
He said the Central Bank would not hesitate to take measures against banks breaching banking regularities.
He said such practices were a frustration to the culture of saving among citizens especially when banking services were much required in the rural areas to promote saving.
“What we don’t want to hear as the Central Bank is how people are losing funds on their savings account. There must be a very good reason and that will have to be made public to our colleagues,” he said.
Mr Mayondi said people save resources for various purposes such as investment or future planning.
On the issue of financial inclusion, Mr Mayondi said the Bank planed to increase financial inclusion to more than 50 per cent of the population by the end of this year.
“We have not been doing well on the issue of financial inclusion spread to the people especially in the rural area. If you remember there was a study that was conducted and we were standing at 33 per cent of the population that was banked,” he said.
Mr Mayondi said it was important for the media to help the Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP) secretariat to report and communicate effectively before and during the upcoming Financial Literacy week in March 2015.