Empower Bank loses US$19k to teller

Zvikomborero Parafini

EMPOWER Bank lost over US$19 000 to an employee who diverted clients’ deposits to get US dollars for his own benefit.

Walter Matare (32) was not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Munashe Chibanda.

He was granted US$500 bail and ordered to report once a week to CID Commercial Crime Division and not to visit his workplace until the matter is finalised.

The bank is being represented by supervisor,

Wellington Zvandasara, whose duties include supervising the branch, doing routine checks and reconciliations.

Matare is employed as a teller, whose duties included preparing weekly reports, processing customer withdrawals and deposit transactions in the system, processing loan disbursements, safe keeping of cash, stamps and system access.

The bank has two types of accounts, the Zimbabwe dollar account and United States dollar account, which every teller has access to through their usernames and passwords.

The court heard that on June 16, Zvandasara made some checks on Matare’s transactions and noted several errors and became suspicious.

On June 21, Zvandasara received a suspicious transaction report to monitor Empower Bank Nostro account belonging to Elizabeth Mhlanga, after it emerged that there was a deposit done by the client and, 10 minutes later, a withdrawal was made.

Zvandasara checked all deposits done by Matare and discovered that whenever a local currency deposit was made, he would always pick the local currency channel and credit the deposits into a Nostro account of the client.

The same clients would make cash withdrawals fin United States dollars.

It is alleged that from January 6 to June 6, Matare misrepresented that Makomborero Machiya, Arthur Chuma, Elizabeth Mhlanga and Faith Mazhata had deposited Zim dollar amounts into their local accounts by completing deposit slips

Matare allegedly went on to withdraw the deposited funds from the US dollar accounts of the clients by misrepresenting that the clients had completed withdrawal slips.

Matare was arrested on Wednesday and police recovered a photocopy of Makomborero Machiya’s passport, two Nostro Transfer copies from Makomborero Machiya’s Nostro Account into Raina Agnes Mhembere’s First Capital Account, among other bank slips.