Two months after Heritage Bank shutdown, its liquidator, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, has reportedly reimbursed 82.36 per cent of its depositors.
Xclusiveloaded News reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked Heritage Bank’s operational license in June after it failed to meet the statutory operational demands expected by law.
In a statement issued Sunday, the NDIC disclosed that it commenced payment to depositors within the first four days after the CBN announced the revocation of Heritage Bank’s licence in June and appointed the NDIC as the liquidator.
While this percentage of depositors has received their payments, the NDIC disclosed that 17.64 per cent of depositors have not received theirs due to various reasons.
According to the corporation, depositors who have not been reimbursed either have a post-no-debit instruction on their accounts or no BVN linked to their accounts. It also added that others had not provided alternative account numbers in other banks to which their insured funds could be paid.
NDIC also stated that while the highest insured deposit is 5 million naira, depositors who have more than N5m in their accounts would be paid their uninsured deposits after all insured deposits with the defunct bank have been paid to their respective depositors and the bank’s assets have been sold to recover incurred debts.
It adds that although uninsured deposits constituted the larger portion of the defunct bank’s total deposits, the order of payment was in line with the priority of claim as provided in the extant law.
The statement read, “In the discharge of its deposit guarantee mandate, the Corporation began the payment of the insured deposits of N5m maximum per depositor within a record time of four days of the bank closure. This was achieved using Bank Verification Numbers as a unique identifier to locate depositors’ alternate accounts in other banks.
“However, depositors with balances exceeding N5m have been paid the initial insured sum of N5m, while the remaining balances (classified as uninsured deposits) will be paid as liquidation dividends upon realisation of the defunct bank’s assets and recovery of debts owed to the defunct bank. This unprecedented achievement of direct payment through BVN linked alternate accounts without the need for depositors to visit NDIC offices or fill out forms marks a historic shift for the NDIC in the prompt reimbursement of depositors with payment of about 82.36 per cent of the total insured deposit to date.”
“Others are those with no alternative accounts in other banks or accounts with KYC limit on the maximum lodgment per day and are yet to come forward for verification. This category of depositors are presently being contacted by the Corporation through telephone calls and text messages to come forward for verification.
“In this regard, the corporation is already working assiduously to ensure that all depositors with amounts in excess of the maximum insured amount of N5m are timely paid through liquidation dividend from the realisation of the defunct bank’s assets. The Corporation has already initiated the process of debt recovery and realisation of investments and physical assets of the defunct bank to ensure timely reimbursement of the uninsured depositors of the defunct bank.
“Subsequently, after the full payment of both insured and uninsured portion of deposits, the Corporation will proceed with the payment of creditors in accordance with priority of claim as provided in the extant law. We will like to reiterate that, all payments other than that of insured deposits, are subject to availability and realisation of assets of the bank in the form of liquidation dividend,” NDIC said.
