Mr Bello Hassan, Managing Director of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), has assured depositors that in the event of failure of a bank, above 97 per cent of depositors would be fully covered by the corporation.
Hassan gave the assurance at the 2021 FICAN Workshop organised by NDIC for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors on Tuesday in Gombe.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop, the 19th edition, has “Enduring Extreme Disruption: Resilience and Reinvention for Banking System Stability and Deposit Insurance ” as theme.
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Hassan said that the corporation’s total number of accounts in the deposit money banks in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, stood at 83.0 million; 99.1million; 112.0 million and 128.4 million respectively.
According to him, out of these numbers, the N500,000 coverage limit fully covered 99.4per cent; 97.6per cent; 97.5 per cent and 97.6per cent of accounts, respectively.
“What these figures entail is that only less than three per cent of accounts/depositors are not fully covered by the prevailing coverage limits.
“The implication of this is that in the event of failure of a bank, above 97per cent of depositors would be fully covered by the Corporation.
“From the foregoing statistics, it could be observed that the Corporation’s deposit insurance coverage limits are not only adequate but robust enough to engender confidence in our banking system,” he said.
The Managing director said also that the Corporation’s maximum coverage limits remained the most adequate and robust in the world.
“We urge the media through this forum to make Nigerian depositors aware that the NDIC’s maximum coverage limits of N500,000.00 per depositor per commercial, merchant and, non-interest bank, primary mortgage bank and mobile money operator, as well as N200,000.00 per depositor per microfinance bank remain the most adequate and robust in the world.
“I need to reiterate that, as it is today, these limits are not only adequate, they are also consistent with the extant provisions and recommendations of the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) in its Core Principle for Effective Deposit Insurance System on the determination of coverage limits.
“The IADI Core Principle No. 8 on coverage limits specifically requires that the thresholds should be limited, credible with the capacity to fully cover substantial majority of bank depositors while the rest remain exposed to ensure market discipline,” he said.
Besides, Hassan advocated that the corporation be efficiently empowered to be able to recover assets as expeditiously as possible, so they could pay the depositors
“There are a lot of areas that I think the NDIC Act needs to be amended. NDIC, we are liquidators and what happens is that at the point of liquidation, we try to recover the assets, especially the loans and advances that were granted by those banks that are in liquidation.
“One of the challenges that we are facing is slow recovery and if the act is to be amended, I think it is important that the corporation is efficiently empowered to be able to recover those assets as expeditiously as possible so they can pay the depositors,” he maintained.(NAN)