The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) registered 19 new microfinance institutions between January and June this year, bringing the total number of licensed operators to 194.
Said RBZ in a statement:
This brings the number of institutions authorised to conduct business of providing loans in terms of the Micro-finance Act [Chapter 24:29] to 194 as at 30 June 2018.
The registrar of micro-financiers at the bank indicated that 18 of the new registered firms were from Harare and only Funamel Investments Pvt Limited is from Masvingo. Among those that were registered is State owned Empower Bank Limited, which is the only deposit taking institution while five are credit only micro-finance institutions. These are Taeddy Capital Investments Pvt Limited, Loanstar Pvt Limited, Mula Microfinance Pvt Limited, Premier Service Microfinance Pvt Limited and Gealcs Pvt Limited. The remaining 13 are money lending institutions only.
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