Econet appoints new TN Bank CEO

Prior to his appointment, Mr Ngwenya headed FNB in Botswana.

In a statement, the firm said Mr Ngwenya, a veteran banker, was head hunted by an international agency.

This was after Econet decided to turn TN Bank into one of the leading banks in the country.

The telecoms operator wants to introduce a new model of banking in the country which uses the synergies of its telecommunications business.

Econet has already made sweeping changes at the bank, after taking control a few months ago.

“Changes have already been made at board level, after the resignation from the bank’s board of founder, Mr Tawanda Nyambirai, in December last year.

“A new team of international bankers have been brought onto the bank’s board.

“Also gone from the bank are almost all the key former executives, including former chief executive officer Mr George Nyashanu, who has been re-assigned within Econet Wireless Services,” said the company.

An overwhelming majority of the TN Bank shareholders accepted the offer by the telecoms group to buy them out of TN Bank Limited.

Econet said acccording to preliminary returns, 96 percent of the minority shareholders accepted the Econet offer.

It said 99 percent of the shareholders who accepted the offer opted for shares rather than cash.

Meanwhile, Econet says it expects a number of banks to have access to its mobile money transfer facility EcoCash by the end of next month.

A senior executive Mr Darlington Mandivenga who is responsible for rolling out EcoCash, said this in response to claims reportedly made by the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe immediate past president Mr John Mushayavanhu that Econet was denying banks access to its platform for integration.

EcoCash is a mobile money transfer system initiated by Econet last year.

BAZ has lobbied the central bank to take action against Econet following the alleged reluctance to integrate banks into the EcoCash platform.

“We have agreements with most of the banks, and we are currently carrying out physical connections with most of them.

“We as Econet initiated the process, and we are very keen to get it completed, but it cannot be rushed because it involves accessing bank accounts,” said Mr Mandivenga.

He said they were working on banks to have their systems running by the end of March.

“Right now I am expecting three major banks to go live within 10 days, because we are almost complete.”