Zambia publishes list of banks with deposit protection

The Bank of Zambia has published a full list of the lenders whose customers are covered by the country’s new deposit insurance scheme. 

The central bank released the list today (March 4) in a public notice on its website. It says all licensed banks and deposit-taking non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) are automatically members of the scheme. The notice lists 15 commercial lenders and nine deposit-taking NBFIs as being covered.

A draft bill to establish a deposit insurance scheme was first completed in 2011, the Lusaka Times reported. However, it did not pass into law until October of last year. 

The scheme provides coverage for up to 250,000 kwacha ($13,020). In September 2025, the central bank governor Denny Kalyalya said nearly nine-tenths of deposit account balances in Zambia were below 50,000 kwacha.

There have been at least two major bank failures in the country over the past 10 years – Intermarket Banking Corporation in 2016 and Investrust Bank in 2024. The central bank has resolved such cases by activating supervisory powers to either restructure such lenders or liquidate them. Depositors’ losses have often been mitigated through payouts from the proceeds of the sales of the lenders’ assets, but bank customers did not enjoy full deposit protection until last year.