The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has disclosed that it would soon review the mninimum insured deposits in licencesd banks, the Managing Director of the Corporation, Bello Hassan has announced.
The Managing Director who made the disclosure at the just concluded 2022 Editors Forum held in Lagos said that the last review in 2021 and found that the current guaranteed levels were still adequate.
Minimum insured deposits which is the minimum the Federal Government, throughthe NDIC, pays to people who keep their deposits with licenced banks in the event of the bank becoming distressed currently stands at N500,000 for commercial banks and N200,000 for Microfinance Finance banks in Nigeria.
He also disclosed that the NDIC Act was due for review in order to keep pace with changes in the country’s economy adding that the Corporation has already sent a set of amendments to the National Assembly in that regard.
He expressed the hope that the National Assembly would pass the amendments so that the President, Muhammadu Buhari could sign it into law before May 29 this year which marks the end of the tenure of the present Government.
Another good news from the Forum was the disclosure by the NDIC that all the depositors in the 20 banks currently under liquidation would receive the final batch of their total insured and uninsured deposits in the affected banks.
This was announced by the NDIC Director, Bank Examination Department, Mr Michael Oladele while delivering his paper titled “Rising Ponzi Schemes and Investment Scams in Nigeria: What We Need to Know.”
Oladele said the affected depositors have been called upon to come forward to collect their deposits that were trapped when the 20 banks went into distress.
This payment, he went on was a clear indication that depositors whose money is trapped in distressed banks can have all their deposits paid to them if the assets recovery of the distressed banks was big enough to cover all the depositors’ total funds.
In the first Paper titled: NDIC –Contributing to Public Confidence in the Financial System: Examining Critical Isuues in Deposit Guarantee and Bank Liquidation”, Mr Kazeem O. Sule, Director, NDIC Claims Resolution Department re-stated that in the event of a licences bank becoming distressed, depositors were the first people to be paid their minimum insured deposits which is either N500,000 for commercial banks or N200,000 for microfinance banks.
He however reminded depositors that such failed banks must be licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria befotre it went into distress adding that after depositors have been taken care of, NDIC would attend to creditors of the distressed banks before attending to shareholders.
Sule highlighted some of the challenges militating against the operations of the Corporation to include poor recording-keeping by banks in liquidation, insecurity in the country, blackmails by promoters of failed banks, ignorance of the activities of the Corporation by many Nigerians and obsolete provisions of the NDIC Act.
He also announced that depositors whose money is trapped in the distressed Fortune Bank would soon be paid their money as the ban placed by the court has been lifted.
Earlier while welcoming the senior journalists, the NDIC Director of Communication and Public Affairs Department, Mr Bashier A. Nuhu had thanked them for honouring the invitation, while President of the Guild of Editors in Nigeria, …… urged journalists to always raise the red flag anytime they come across a business that looks like a Ponzi scheme. He praised the NDIC for holding the Forum
In his closing remarks, the NDIC Executive Director, Operations, Mustapha M. Ibrahim thanked the Editors for their support to the Corporation and assured Nigerians that NDIC would continue to strive to improve on its services.
