NDIC Moves To Recover N700bn Loan To Offset Depositors Of Heritage Bank 

The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) said it would immediately go after debtors of defunct Heritage Bank Plc to recover more funds to pay the insured and insured amounts of depositors of the bank.

According to official documents, the failed bank had a loan record of over 700bn which the NDIC assured would be recovered.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had on Monday withdrawn the operational licence of the bank for poor performance with “no reasonable prospects of recovery, thereby making the revocation of the license the next necessary step.”

Managing Director of NDIC, Hassan Bello on Wednesday said preliminary investigations showed that the failed bank had about N650bn total deposits which he said could be more because there could be other deposits that were not immediately ascertained.

The NDIC MD also said the bank has a total of 2.3m depositors with 99.9 percent having a balance of less than N5million deposits with the bank, while only about 1 percent has deposits above N5million.

He assured that the NDIC will leverage the powers of the Act establishing it to recover the money from the debtors of the bank.

“Those powers are really sufficient for us to track those debtors and recover the monies and pay the creditors. We want to assure depositors that there is no need to panic. They will get their money back,” Bello said.

He added that the guarantee is for all depositors despite the number of accounts the customer has with the liquidated bank.

“Payment of this insured amount is going to kick off within week. We are going to pay the insured deposit within one week,” he assured.

He said the NDIC will leverage the BVN to identify alternate bank accounts of the depositors to pay them the insured amount up to the maximum of N5m, while customers without alternate accounts are asked to visit the branches of the bank.

Bello said the corporation will immediately commence payment of the insured amount to the depositors, while assuring that the corporation will realise all physical and online assets.

He added that the creditors of the bank would be paid when the assets of the bank are sold.

Bello said the uninsured deposits would only be settled after the assets, including buildings and machines are advertised and sold to recover the money to offset the uninsured sum.