The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZIM) has authorised the Financial Securities Exchange (FINSEC) to operate and administer the National Treasury Bills (TBs) and Bonds Registration and Transaction Coding Framework.

The initiative, officially approved by the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion, introduces a mandatory tracking architecture across Zimbabwe’s secondary debt market to enhance transparency, security, and market efficiency.

Universal Tracking and Unique Transaction Coding

Under the new regulatory mandate, FINSEC will assume full oversight of the registration, transaction coding, validation, and registry duties for all secondary market trades involving government bonds and Treasury Bills.

SECZIM’s directive establishes that every secondary market deal in government paper must be registered and assigned a unique Transaction Code via FINSEC’s system, regardless of how or where the trade was negotiated, executed, or settled.

Strict Operating Mandates for Market Intermediaries

The framework introduces explicit operational boundaries for all capital market participants, including stockbrokers, investment managers, and financial institutions:

• Principal Trading: Licensed entities must trade strictly as principals, bearing all associated operational and financial risks directly.
• Pre-Approval Requirements: Complex transaction structures—such as repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements (repos), transfer assignments, collateral arrangements, structured financing, and beneficial ownership transfers—require prior authorization from SECZIM before registration.
• Comprehensive Reporting: Market participants are obligated to log full trade specifications into the system, including counterparty identities, security IDs, transaction dates, pricing, yields, discount rates, and maturity terms.

Enforcement Powers

FINSEC stated in a market notice that the core purpose of the deployment is structural enhancement: “Its purpose is to strengthen secondary market efficiency, security and transparency.”

To ensure full operational compliance, SECZIM will actively monitor implementation through targeted inspections, mandatory compliance filings, and regulatory sanctions against non-compliant institutions