APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has reinstated the licences of three commercial banks it closed six years ago after the financial institutions ran into financial problems, APA learns here Sunday.

The RBZ said in a statement issued in Harare that it was relicensing Royal Bank, Trust Banking Corporation and Barbican Bank which were closed in 2004 and had their assets merged to form the Zimbabwe Allied Banking Group (ZABG).

The RBZ statement said the reinstated licences would take effect from September 1.

The three institutions were closed in 2004 amid allegations that they were financially unstable and were put under judicial management as a way of trying to revive their operations.

When curators reported that the institutions were beyond redemption, they were amalgamated into the ZABG which commenced operations at the end of January 2005.

At the time RBZ claimed it had taken such drastic measures to protect the economic interests of depositors and to avert “a fully-fledged systemic financial crisis” which would have dealt a devastating blow to the Zimbabwean economy.

The RBZ said the relicensing of Barbican, Royal and Trust would have no effect on the legal status of ZABG, which would continue to operate although it would return assets taken from the three banks in 2004.