NDIC To Pay Failed Micro Finance Banks Depositors' In December

ABUJA, Nov 27, (THEWILL) - The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) will on the First week of December 2010 commence payment of insured funds to depositors of distressed Micro-Finance Banks (MFBs) nationwide.

The corporation said the exercise would have depositors from 79 of the 103 distressed MFBs captured in the first phase with the remaining ones scheduled to come up later.

In the reviewed deposit insurance guarantee recently announced by the NDIC’s Board, banks’ depositors insured funds in the event of failure was moved from 200,000 Naira to 500,000 Naira for commercial banks’ customers while the MFBs customers goes up from 100,000 to 200,000 Naira.

Head of Communications, NDIC, Alhaji Birchi said weekend in Abuja that the proposed exercise would be in two categories with depositors having between one Naira (N1) to five thousand Naira (N5, 000) being paid in cheques while those with deposits ranging from Five thousand Naira (N5, 000) to 200,000 (N200, 000) would be through Automated Teller Machines (ATM) pre-paid cards.

He said the corporation was finalizing arrangements to release a comprehensive timetable for the exercise while efforts were being intensified to process and update necessary records that would enable NDIC effectively handle the remaining MFBs in the next phase.