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Legal proceedings as well as the few participants and low volume of activity on the market have continued to impede the anticipated timing of the liquidation of AfrAsia Bank Zimbabwe Limited, an official has said.

AfrAsia Bank was founded as Kingdom Financial Holdings by Nigel Chanakira in 1994. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in February 2015, cancelled the bank’s operating licence after determining that the financial institution was no longer in a sound financial condition.

The bank reported high levels of non-performing loans which increased from 13 percent in 2012 to 82 percent in 2015 which led to severe liquidity challenges and hampered its ability to write new business.

The High Court placed the bank under final liquidation on April 29 last year. Liquidator, Reggie Saruchera said a second interim dividend was paid to preferential creditors in November last year.

“The third interim dividend is likely to be paid out in the first half of 2017, to concurrent creditors after all preferential creditors have been paid,” he said.

“The dividend will be distributed on a pro-rata basis depending on the rate of recovery and disposal of assets,” he said in an update to creditors and members of the bank.

AfrAsia Bank is one of four financial institutions that closed over the past few years, with others being Allied Bank, Capital Bank and Trust Bank which had its licence cancelled over abuse of depositor funds.

The bank was AfrAsia Mauritius’s only banking operation outside Mauritius with the other subsidiaries being in South Africa and the United Kingdom only serving as representative offices. – New Ziana.