By Agency Reporter

Tuesday, 30 Nov 2010

The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation will soon commence payment of N I.6bn claims to some customers of microfinance banks whose licences were revoked.

An authoritative source in the corporation disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Monday.

He said that beneficiaries would be depositors of 79 microfinance banks out of the 103 banks whose licences were permanently revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

NAN recalls that the licences of 224 microfinance banks were revoked on September 24, 2010 but 121 were asked to apply for fresh licences.

“The corporation has 103 microfinance banks to liquidate but currently we have successfully worked on 79 with 24 outstanding.

“This is due to the fact that the owners refused to grant us access to their premises.

“Others do not have complete documents we need to work with while a few have many branches,” he said.

The source said that it was the practice of NDIC to pay within 90 days of closure of a bank and would commence payments on December 6 at the premises of the affected banks.

He said that the corporation had deployed some of its workers to the 79 microfinance banks across the country.

The source said that the NDIC would continue to encourage sound banking culture in the country and urged Nigerians to have faith in the policies of the NDIC and the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Source: Punch