Bernardo Aparício: The face behind mismanagement at Standard Bank

Bernardo Aparício, a Portuguese citizen, has been leading Standard Bank since 2022 as the Managing Director (MD), a position equivalent to Chief Executive Officer. He replaced Nigerian Adimohanma Chukwuma Nwokocha, who was suspended from holding social and management positions in credit institutions and financial companies in the country for six years by the Bank of Mozambique in 2021, accused of violating banking principles and methodologies imposed by the regulator.

In the same action, the Bank of Mozambique suspended Standard Bank from foreign exchange activities in the country for one year and imposed a fine of just over 290 million meticais, resulting from what the Bank of Mozambique classified as "serious prudential and foreign exchange violations."

However, since Aparício took over, instead of improving its reputation, the bank has declined in various indicators, with the peak of this decline being the allegations against the MD related to management favouring personal interests, nepotism, and mistreatment of workers, especially those of darker skin.

These injustices have been occurring under the indifferent eye of the Labour Inspectorate, which is supposed to protect workers' rights. A flurry of complaints confirms occurrences of mistreatment, unjustified dismissals, and lack of compensation payments.

A reliable source, who served at the financial institution for over 15 years in a managerial position, decided to speak to TORRE.News to reveal everything known about the "Standard Bank dossier."

According to the source, the problems at Standard Bank began when the SIMOrede system, introduced by the Bank of Mozambique, experienced issues that led to an almost total blackout in commercial banks across the country.

As a solution, the IT team at Standard Bank, then led by MD Adimohanma Chukwuma Nwokocha, opted to implement an alternative system to address the blackout problems, despite violating central bank policies, which led to Standard Bank's suspension and penalties.

In the Bank of Mozambique's justification for suspending Standard Bank in 2021, it cited, among other reasons, the “installation and implementation of an illegal payment network based outside the country, which generally resembled SIMOrede.”

However, the implementation of the system, with all the associated risks, was against the regulator's policies, which was reported in several emails and minutes sent to the bank’s Executive Council, the body responsible for deciding whether the team should proceed.

According to the source, at the end of the sanctions imposed by the Bank of Mozambique in 2022, Aparício took over the management of Standard Bank, and that’s when the mismanagement began. "He said: 'I need to save the bank’s image, and for that, some people must be sacrificed,’” said the source, who also revealed that they are in a recovery process due to the moral turmoil caused by the separation.

Sacrificing some people practically meant dismissing the IT team that was behind the system’s implementation. TORRE.News knows that at least seven people were dismissed from this group, with some even having to surrender their homes to honour their loans with the bank.

From a human perspective, these employees saw their rights violated and their work time wasted. TORRE.News knows from the source that some of these individuals were almost ready for retirement, but the new MD did not consider this.

“The outrageous part is that the MD knew the system’s implementation was not the IT team’s decision, yet he decided to dismiss them in what he called 'cleaning the institution’s image.'”

At the Executive Council level, which approved the system, at least four people were dismissed.

Curiously, according to the source, an employee named Victor Jardim, who owned the system introduced by the IT team and was part of the Market Commission at the time, was not included in the dismissals implemented by Bernardo Aparício. Instead, he was integrated into the Executive Committee.

Alleged friendly hirings and damage to the Bank

After the dismissal of the employees, most of the IT team, some with humiliating agreements, the bank needed to replenish its staff.

For this, according to the same source, Bernardo Aparício turned to his friends, some from Absa Bank and others from Vodacom and M-Pesa Mozambique, to fill the vacancies.

Another reliable source, who worked at Standard Bank for over 10 years, told TORRE.News that Aparício brought about four people from Absa Bank, among them José Pacheco and Januário Valentim.

These figures, identified as close to Bernardo Aparício, hold significant positions at Standard Bank, with José Pacheco as Head of Risk and Januário Valentim as Head of Commercial Bank.

The three were at Absa Bank under the leadership of Rui Barros, where there are allegations—confirmed by documents in our possession—of approving dubious loans, the most notable being a loan of 530 million meticais approved in favour of Smart MultiService, with the businessman disappearing without a trace.

Regarding the fraudulent debts at Absa Bank Mozambique involving the current MD of Standard Bank and his associates, TORRE.News contacted the institution, but it declined to provide any information, citing banking secrecy.

"According to current regulations and the duty of banking secrecy, Absa Bank Mozambique is not authorized to provide any details related to customers," Absa responded to a letter of inquiries sent by our editorial team.

Still, TORRE.News knows that José Pacheco is the brother-in-law of Rui Barros (the latter a Portuguese citizen and friend of Bernardo Aparício), which raises suspicions among company sources about a conflict of interest in Pacheco’s appointment as Head of Risk.

Moreover, Pacheco's appointment resulted from the fraudulent elimination of a female candidate who was also vying for the position, precisely because the MD wanted to accommodate his friend’s brother-in-law.

From M-Pesa, Aparício brought Gulamo Nabi, who was the general manager, and he was placed in the position of IT director at Standard Bank, even without approval from the Bank of Mozambique to perform this function.

Months later, due to internal pressure within the bank, considering Gulamo Nabi’s poor reputation in the financial system, Aparício was forced to remove his friend from the position and accommodate him as a bank consultant, a clear case of human resource management outside the recommended criteria for a sensitive sector like banking.

Following the festival of friendly appointments, completely disregarding the principles of technical competence and professionalism, for instance, last year Standard Bank faced a severe system failure that allowed customers to withdraw money without debiting their accounts.

As a result of these failures, which became public knowledge, TORRE.News knows that Standard Bank incurred a loss of around 300 million meticais, an amount withdrawn even by customers without account balances.

Regarding this incident, a banking IT specialist with over 15 years of experience believes that the failure was likely caused by the inexperience of the new IT team.

In addition to these issues that sacrifice the credibility of the institution, TORRE.News knows that some major clients are already leaving the bank, including the giant Vulcan, a company that acquired Vale Mozambique's shares in the mining sector in Tete.

"Aparício has a personal agenda that does not benefit the Bank"

Given the facts reported to our editorial team, the informants believe that the MD of Standard Bank is driven by a personal agenda with interests that do not benefit the institution, one of the largest and oldest operating in Mozambique.

In terms of mismanagement, there is indignation and questioning in the institution’s corridors, including posters in the streets of Maputo calling for the MD’s removal.

Another source of employee indignation at Standard Bank regarding the MD’s decisions involves the rationale for spending 1.5 million dollars to renovate the MD’s residence in Maputo.

Regarding the residence in question, TORRE.News also knows that much of the material was imported from Italy and the contract for the work was awarded to a Portuguese company, at the MD’s recommendation.

Moreover, reliable sources claim that most contracts at Standard Bank are awarded to companies recommended by the MD. Consequently, there is suspicion that even the recent replacement of the headquarters' furniture was an initiative of the MD, and curiously, most awarded companies are owned by Portuguese citizens.

In this context, TORRE.News interviewed Lídia de Jesus, a former Standard Bank employee, who confirmed that companies whose contracts are decided by the MD include Vivo, 5 Star, and Flor Real, managed by Bernardo Aparício’s friends. This is still under investigation and will likely be the subject of the next report.

Some sources who had agreed to record interviews for this report postponed at the last minute, allegedly because their lawyers advised against it, as their cases are still pending.

It is also known that the current Standard Bank management is trying to bring former employees who publicly denounced the injustices to justice, claiming that some had agreements that presumed total “silence” about the terms of their dismissals, in a case involving unjust dismissals, mistreatment, and racism.

In response to TORRE.News' request for clarification on the matter, Standard Bank limited itself to stating that all presented allegations are unfounded and malicious attempts to defame the institution’s reputation.

"Any acquisition of goods and services by the bank follows a rigorous procurement process, with several levels of verification and approval. Contracted companies go through transparent and competitive bidding processes, without interference from the Managing Director or other managers,” the bank said, referring to allegations about direct contracts and companies owned by the MD’s friends.

Regarding ATM withdrawals by customers without balances, the bank acknowledged the scenario but said the amounts cited in the allegations do not match the company’s records.

“The mentioned loss is highly inflated and does not correspond to the institution’s financial records,” the bank downplayed.

However, this is an issue that TORRE.News will continue to investigate with other actors, including those regulating banking operations in Mozambique and the Standard Bank Group level.