Bard Santner wants to turn Zimbabwe’s diaspora remittances into a banking business
Ngonidzashe Chikowore, managing director of Bard Santner Microfinance Bank, which received a deposit-taking microfinance banking licence effective 1 October 2026 to expand into savings, lending and other financial services. Image source: Bard Santner Share Bard Santner , a financial services group offering asset management, corporate finance, wealth management, and remittance services, is positioning itself to capture a larger share of Zimbabwe’s $2.45 billion diaspora market . Through its newly licenced deposit-taking microfinance bank, the firm is attempting a structural shift: moving beyond zero-margin transactional transfers into high-yield lending, wealth management, and deposit mobilisation. The strategic core of this expansion is customer lifetime value. Pure-play remittance companies face severe price compression, but by bundling credit and savings onto existing cross-border flows, Bard Santner aims to convert transactional users into long-term banking clients. However, a...