This year, the Bank of Mozambique imposed a fine of 134.9 million meticais (1.9 million euros) on Caixa Geral de Depósitos’ Banco Comercial e de Investimentos (BCI) and 12 of its directors.
The information is contained in a note from the central bank, released today, on sanctions applied in the period from October 2022 to December 2023, involving five credit institutions and “12 members of the management body of one of the credit institutions sanctioned, with fines, for violating prudential, foreign exchange and consumer protection rules for financial products and services”.
The fine imposed on BCI in 2023 – the central bank doesn’t specify the date – the largest Mozambican bank, led by Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), is the result of “accepting an alternative and indirect way of fulfilling a credit obligation, weakening its position, as a creditor”, the “undue exoneration of an institutional client from its credit responsibilities”, the “unfounded write-off of part of the interest generated in a credit relationship” and the “assumption of costs contractually assigned to an institutional client”.
A total of around 17.2 million meticais (244,280 euros) was also imposed on 12 members of BCI’s board of directors, according to the same report from the Mozambican central bank.
BCI has a share capital of 10 billion meticais (140 million euros), in a shareholder structure led (51%) by Caixa Participações, of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) group, and also includes the Portuguese bank BPI (35.67%), also directly owned by CGD (10.51%), among others.
The remaining four fines imposed on banks, all from 2022 (October to December), include First National Bank Moçambique, in the amount of 28.9 million meticais (411,020 euros), Banco Letshego, in the amount of 20 million meticais (284,440 euros), Banco Internacional de Moçambique, in the amount of 17.2 million meticais (244,620 euros), and MyBucks Banking Corporation, in the amount of eight million meticais (113,700 euros).