The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) says account name discrepancies in Bank Verification Number (BVN) linked alternate accounts of some defunct Heritage Bank customers are delaying the payment of their insured deposits.
Bello Hassan, the managing director of NDIC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday, 30 June in the nation’s capital. He said the corporation had paid a substantial amount to depositors of the defunct bank without BVN account-linked issues – calling on depositors who have yet to receive their insured deposit credit alert to visit the NDIC website to complete verification forms for payment.
The managing director posited that the verification would include depositors without BVN alternate accounts saying ”We have already commenced the payment of customers since June 6. We have paid a substantial amount to the customers. What we leverage in making the payment is the BVN of customers. We trace alternate accounts in other banks and pay them their insured amounts. There are some that we have challenges linking up because of some discrepancies between the names and others. We are calling on customers that have not received their alerts in their alternate accounts to come forward and complete their verification forms so that we can pay them.”
On payment of depositors with more than five million naira with the bank, Hassan said they would be paid liquidation dividends. The NDIC has already commenced the process of disposing of the physical buildings and also set the process in motion to make sure that it recovers the loans and advances that were granted the bank.
He said ”That is what we use in paying those liquidation dividends. We are not going to wait until we recover everything, no. As we recover, we will also advertise to say that we will pay liquidation dividends so that concerned depositors will be on the look out for alerts in their accounts.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on 03 June revoked the banking licence of Heritage Bank Plc. A decision the apex bank was necessitated by the bank’s failure to improve its financial performance, posing a threat to financial stability.
SOURCE: News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
