The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation has announced that discrepancies in account names linked to the Bank Verification Numbers of some former Heritage Bank customers are causing delays in the payment of their insured deposits.
In a statement to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja, NDIC’s Managing Director, Mr. Bello Hassan, confirmed that a significant number of payments have already been made to depositors without BVN-related issues.
“We have commenced the payment of customers since June 6 and have paid a substantial amount to those with no BVN issues. We use customers’ BVNs to trace alternate accounts in other banks and pay them their insured amounts,” Hassan explained.
However, he noted that some discrepancies between account names have prevented payments from being processed. He urged customers who have not received their payments to visit the NDIC website to complete verification forms, including those without BVN-linked accounts.
Hassan stated, “We are calling on customers who have not received their alerts in their alternate accounts to come forward and complete their verification forms so that we can pay them.”
For depositors with more than five million naira, Hassan indicated that they would receive a liquidation dividend. The NDIC has started selling the bank’s physical assets and is working to recover loans and advances previously granted by the bank to fund these dividends.
“That is what we use in paying those liquidation dividends. We will not wait until everything is recovered. As we recover assets, we will advertise to inform concerned depositors to look out for alerts in their accounts,” he added.
The Central Bank of Nigeria revoked the banking license of Heritage Bank Plc on June 3, 2024, due to persistent financial instability and regulatory breaches. This decision was made in accordance with Section 12 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 2020, which aims to maintain a stable financial system in Nigeria.
Despite several supervisory measures to address its declining performance, Heritage Bank failed to improve its financial health, posing a significant threat to financial stability, leading to the license revocation.
Following the withdrawal of Heritage Bank’s license, the NDIC announced that it would begin payments to the bank’s 2.3 million depositors. The commission noted that 99% of the bank’s total customers had deposits of less than N5 million.
Earlier, the NDIC had increased the maximum amount of deposit insurance coverage for Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) from N500,000 to N5 million and for microfinance banks from N200,000 to N2 million.
