NIGERIA Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, has called on Nigerians to ignore rumours of financial distress in some Nigerian banks being circulated through text messages and social media. Umaru Ibrahim, managing director/chief executive, NDIC, said the position of the rumour was to de-market some financial institutions and destabilise depositors’ confidence in the banking system.

Ibrahim said this in Abuja, during a courtesy visit to the corporation by the executive members of the Alumni Association of the National Institute, AANI, Abuja chapter led by Bola Balogun, its chairman. He said the corporation had over the years played a very critical role towards ensuring that banks were safe and sound through effective supervision of the banks, financial and technical assistance to deserving financial institutions and adoption of timely failure resolution options to problem banks.

Ibrahim was also quoted in a statement from the NDIC on Thursday, May 11, to have informed the AANI executive members that the corporation, since its inception, had continued to closely monitor the challenges affecting the banking industry such as poor corporate governance, insider loans and non-performing loans in order to further safeguard depositors’ interest in the banking system.

According to him, with the NDIC’s strict supervision and regulation of the banking industry in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, depositors should have full confidence in the safety and security of their funds in the licensed financial institutions. He also said the corporation had enhanced the effectiveness of its mandate as well as its vast experience in the complex exercise of failure resolution and sought to share the experience through documentation and publication of the failure resolution of 20 cases of failed insured deposit money banks, DMBs, in five volumes.

The compendium, he added, highlighted key lessons learnt by the corporation in the exercise in order to prepare itself for the future. In line with the corporation’s efforts towards promoting financial literacy, the NDIC boss also said the corporation in collaboration with other stakeholders was proposing the establishment of a Centre for Financial and Economics Studies at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPPS, Kuru, to train participants in essential areas of financial and economic management.

Responding, Balogun commended the NDIC for its supervisory role, which he described as an invaluable anchor for the security and stability of the nation’s financial system. He also praised the corporation’s efforts towards the protection of depositors’ funds and consumer protection activities.

—  May 22, 2017 @ 1:00 GMT