Amendment of NDIC Act will improve liquid asset recovery — MD, Hassan Bello
By Asishana John
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), has assured that successful amendment of its act, will further empower it to recover assets of banks in liquidation as quickly as possible.
The corporation is currently collaborating with the National Assembly to facilitate amendment to the NDIC Act.
The NDIC has also revealed payment of over N113 billion to depositors of money in commercial banks, microfinance institutions as well as primary mortgage banks currently in liquidation as of September 30, 2021.
Managing Director and Chief Executive of the corporation, Hassan Bello, during a media engagement in Lagos assured that the deposit insurance corporation was working to ensure that liquidated banks’ depositors are paid on time.
He noted that the NDIC had paid a cumulative sum of N8.3billion to 443,946 insured depositors and N100.1billion to uninsured depositors of dmbs in-liquidation as of 30th September, 2021, while N3.4 billion was paid to 90,945 insured depositors of microfinance banks and N1.2 million to uninsured depositors.
In the same vein, cumulative insured amount paid to 1,553 depositors of closed primary mortgage banks as at 30th september, 2021 stood at N110.2 million while N7.9 million was paid as uninsured deposits.
He, however, admitted that payments had been slow due to the several court cases as well as the unwillingness of debtors to pay up.
“It takes a long time in paying depositors because at the point of closure we only pay the maximum insured amount and subsequently we now begin to realise the assets and pay depositors.
“We have commenced the process of strengthening our failure resolution and liquidation mandate through the improvement of our internal processes and procedures as well as enhancing effective collaboration with relevant stakeholders to ensure that the corporation discharges its responsibilities more efficiently.
“This has become imperative given the need to implement prompt corrective actions on failing or failed insured institutions, improve our processes in addressing challenges in liquidation and, most importantly, provide timely reimbursement of insured sums to depositors of failed banks.
“We have the challenge of slow recovery, as a lot of people that borrowed from those banks don’t want to pay back and we also have the issue of slow judicial process, and currently we are liaising with the National Assembly to get the Act amended in order to empower the corporation to be able to recover these assets as quickly as possible.
“The loans given by the banks in liquidation is actually the deposit of people, so we need to recover them as quickly as possible so that we can pay them. We also have cases with banks in court so we want a situation whereby those cases are given accelerated hearing so that we can quickly dispense with them.”
Meanwhile, he said, the Nigerian banking industry has seen some stability as risk management improved in the sector.
“We have seen the growth in risk management in banks, and I want to assure you that is the secret behind the stability we are seeing today in the banking sector. A lot of banks have improved their risk management. I am not saying they have reached the peak, because there is always room for improvement,” he said.
