Don't Miss

NDIC mulls insurance cover for mobile payment subscribers

By BusinessNews Staff on September 27, 2014

The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) yesterday said it was finalising a framework to extend deposit insurance cover to individual subscribers of the Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) in the form of a pass-through deposit insurance.

He also said the corporation was currently seeking to establish a resolution fund to help create additional buffers to enable it discharge its obligations in the event of any bank failure.

Speaking at its 25th anniversary press conference in Abuja, Managing Director/Chief Executive, NDIC, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, said the move was aimed at engendering public confidence in subscribing to products offered by the mobile operators.

He said the proposed framework would ensure that mobile money subscribers are covered to a certain limit.
Among other things, the regulatory framework for mobile payments services in Nigeria had been created to revolutionise the country’s payment system in line with global developments as well as facilitate financial inclusion. This had led to the licencing of 24 MMOs in the country.

He however noted that the health of the banks remained stable and strong.
Ibrahim said following the revocation of the operating licences of insured deposit money banks (DMBs) in 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006, as well as the closure of 103 and 83 Microfinance Banks (MFBs) including 26 primary mortgage banks (PMBs) in 2010 and 2013 respectively, the Corporation had disbursed a cumulative sum of about 6.82 billion to 528,277 insured depositors of the 48 DMBs in-liquidation as at August 31.

He added that a cumulative sum of about N2.75 billion had also been paid to 80,059 verified depositors of 186 closed MFBs within the same period.

The payment of liquidation dividends to the uninsured depositors of the closed DMBs was undertaken at different time in the last 25 years of NDIC’s engagement as a liquidator of banks in Nigeria.

The NDIC boss said a cumulative sum of about N93.64 billion was paid as liquidation dividend to 250,497 depositors of DMBs as at August 31, 2014 adding that about N1.72 billion was declared as dividends to 699 creditors of nine liquidated banks.

According to him, the NDIC had paid the sum of about N1.19 billion to 424 creditors who filed their claims as at August 31, 2014, while about 2.03 billion was also paid as liquidation dividend to 453 shareholders of Alpha, Pan African and Nigeria Merchant Bank.

The NDIC boss also said the deposit insurance regulator was currently pursuing a guiding principle that would ensure that banks that default in their premium contributions are denied any form of insurance cover by the corporation.

Nevertheless, he said the corporation’s liquidation activities had been fraught with challenges including the Inability to locate some of the closed PMBs whose licences were revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He added that the issue of lack of public awareness of the corporation’s activities as well as the fact that depositors of failed financial institutions feel reluctant to claim their deposit further posed a challenge to its efforts.

Furthermore, Ibrahim disclosed that banks’ premium contribution to a sinking fund created in the aftermath of the banking financial crisis would be reduced from the current 0.4 per cent to 0.35 per cent as from next year.

This, according to him is aimed at reducing the premium burden on the banks and encourage their contribution to the Financial Stability Fund and reduce the costs of funds in DMBs.

[This Day]

headline