Earlier this week we revealed how civil servants were finding it difficult to spend their Nostro USD allowance in shops. This is mostly because most shops do not yet have Point of Sale machines that can process these payments and the fact that most civil servants are still to be issued with the requisite bank cards. This has resulted in crowds of civil servants flocking to banks to have their funds liquidated.

One such banks that was seeing crowds is FBC. To be honest they had developed a method that allowed them to swiftly serve these crowds but during this pandemic crowds are undesirable. Thankfully FBC have announced that their account holders can now apply to have their funds liquidated via WhatsApp or email.

Customer Notice: Civil Servants COVID-19 allowances

Dear Valued Customer

To convert your COVID 19 allowance, kindly send a signed instruction with the amount, your Nostro and ZWL account numbers to [email protected] or app 0772 303 500

The notice to customers

How you can go about doing this?

  • Find a white piece of paper, preferably a whole page or a ruled page
  • Write your instruction e.g
    Dear Branch Manager FBC,
    I want you to liquidate xxx amount from Nostro Account xxx and put the liquidated funds into ZWL Account XXX.
    Yours truly,
    XXXX {signature}
    Print Name In Caps
  • Make sure to write legibly
  • Take a clear photo of the paper making sure that the instructions are visible
  • Send the photo as an attachment either via WhatsApp or email to the above contacts