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He said at present, Government deposits were concentrated in a few financial institutions which was not healthy.
Mr Guvamatanga said the danger in Government depositing its money in a few banks was that they might engage in risky activities thinking Government would protect them from closing down to protect its deposits.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti has allocated $100 million to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to resume its lender of last resort function which was suspended with the introduction of the multiple currencies in 2009 when the central bank stopped printing money.
“We need to ensure that the RBZ is fully capitalised to play its role of banker of last resort and banker of Government. Government deposits are concentrated in a few institutions and the danger is these few will think they will not be allowed to fall. The role of banker to the Government should reside in the central bank and allow mobilisation of funds,” Mr Guvamatanga said at the High Level Economic Forum which ended in Victoria Falls yesterday.
He also said banks planned to introduce a code of conduct for self regulation and a banking ombudsman to deal with complaints from the public.
Banks in the country have been accused of charging exorbitant service fees to make huge profits in the face of shortages of money for lending. Mr Guvamatanga conceded that some charges levied by banks were on the high side such as 54 percent charged by one bank for encroachment (overdraft).
He said most banks were charging an average of $5 account maintenance fee, $1 for an interim statement, $2 for an ATM withdrawal and $3 for branch withdrawal.
Mr Guvamatanga said banks had not done enough to educate the public on how they could do their banking transactions cheaply. He said the public could use Point of Sale in retail outlets which cost 10 cents per transaction.
Meanwhile, most of the country’s minerals are already being value added locally, the president of the Chamber of Mines Mr Winston Chitando has said. He said the central bank had a jewellery plant in Harare, while Turnall made asbestos roofing sheet from asbestos fibre.
But he said platinum was being refined in South Africa because volumes were still too low to justify setting up of a refinery.
The country needs to produce about one million ounces of platinum annually for the refinery to be viable. The country is producing about 300 000 ounces at the moment.
Mr Chitando said at least $2 billion was needed to set up a platinum refinery while platinum mining required $6 billion
He said while the country had vast mineral resources, some of the mineral occurrences were of low quality and could be costly to mine.
Online Reporter