The five branches will be drawn from both the commercial bank and building society. In a notice to stakeholders, the banking group indicated that accounts from affected branches will be migrated into other branches.
The initiative follows the successful integration of its digital platforms which will see the closure of Beitbridge, Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, Graniteside and FBC Building Society Centre branches.
The Beitbridge branch will be migrated to Masvingo, while Nelson Mandela and Samora Machel will both be moved to FBC Centre. Accounts from Graniteside and FBC Building Society Centre will be migrated to Southerton and Leopold Takawira respectively.
The initiative will also see the banks going paperless with services such as making deposits, real-time gross settlement (RTGS) payments and cash withdrawals using manual documents no longer accepted.
"For your convenience, we encourage you to utilise your ATM card to transact on POS (point of sale) machines in retail outlets. You can also utilise our digital banking services such as the FBC Mobile App or Mobile Moola, internet banking and ATMs, which are available for use at any time of the day," said the group.
Several other banks in Zimbabwe are taking the digitilisation route with services skewed towards e-commerce which is in line with global trends.
Banking services providers from across the globe are going paperless with the market embracing e-commerce.
In Zimbabwe, the advent of cash shortages that started in 2016 have resulted in rise to use of electronic platforms making Zimbabwe one of the top countries to embrace plastic money in the world.
This has also given rise to the growth in mobile money usage which is envisaged to continue on a growth trajectory as more consumers are turning to it for convenience. In Zimbabwe and the region, mobile money has been essential in enhancing financial inclusion.
