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In the modern world banks are unique. Formally, they are commercial enterprises, but in fact they have a government role, controlling all of the financial activity of the population and organizations. This article examines the roles of banks in the surveillance and pressuring of people that are not usually publicized. There is no political subtext in this article, as the situation described is typical for all countries. The fact that the majority of the examples given are from Russia and the USA simply reflects the experience of the authors. The other important thing to note is that the article describes the ongoing war of “banks against the people,” and the cascade of events is accelerating with nearly every month. And the winner in these intermittent skirmishes is always the same.

The main aim of this study was to empirically assess the main microeconomic factors that affect a bank's performance. The objectives were to ascertain if there is a relationship between the performance variables with the microeconomic variables, determine those that are significant and their impact on the performance of banks in Zimbabwe. An econometric model was built from balanced panel data and the Arellano-Bond estimation procedure was employed. The empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of 17 banks that were operational in the years 2010 to 2017 in Zimbabwe. Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Net Interest Margin (NIM) were used as the performance indicators in the analysis. The results indicate the main microeconomic factors to be those attributed to growth, credit risk, capitalisation, managerial efficiency, liquidity and diversification in the Zimbabwean financial institutions. Performance in these institutions is generally good as measured by positive persistent profits, that is, ROA, ROE and NIM. These returns reflect the extent to which these institutions are resilient to the economic crisis.