NDIC warns against patronising ‘wonder banks’

Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has warned members of the public against patronising dubious fund managers in view of mouthwatering interest rates and unattainable returns they offered their victims.

And in its bid to ensure the success of financial inclusion campaign, has so far trained over 27,000 national youth corps members on principles of financial literacy.

Managing director of the corporation, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim who spoke in Abuja on Thursday during the NDIC Special Day at the Abuja International Trade Fair also disclosed that with the increase of deposit insured limit to N500,000, 90 percent of all ban depositors have been covered.

The NDIC boss noted that despite repeated warnings, many unsuspecting and financially naïve members of the public have continued to patronise these dubious fund managers in view of mouthwatering interest rates and unattainable returns they offered their victims.

“Members of the public are therefore, advised to patronise only banking institutions be it DMBs, PMBs, MMOs and MFBs with a display of the NDIC stickers carrying the words: ‘Insured by NDIC’ in their banking halls or entrances and various branches across the country”, he stated.

“Without any doubt, these wonder banks or illegal fund managers are neither licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria nor are they under the NDIC deposit insurance scheme

On financial literacy, Ibrahim disclosed that “to date, over 27,000 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members across 17 states of the country have benefitted from NDIC’s financial literacy campaign on the roles of the corporation in the banking system.

“Efforts are on-going to cover the remaining states on continuous basis for the purpose of enlarging the scope of financial inclusion and financial education towards consumer protection in the country.”

He said under the purview of Financial System Strategy 2020 (FSS2020), which is a collaboration with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the corporation has continued to partner with all stakeholders to propagate the objectives of National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) to reduce the percentage of Nigerians excluded from formal financial services.

In order to reduce the number of financially excluded from 46.3 percent in 2010 to 20 percent in 2020, NDIC has published various books for primary and secondary school pupils including the general public.

NDIC also partnered National Universities Commission (NUC) to introduce a pilot scheme of two courses on Deposit Insurance Scheme into the curricula of undergraduate programmes in seven universities.

Ibrahim also told his audience, which included traditional rulers, professionals and business people that the corporation has progressively increased its maximum deposit insurance limit from N50,000 in 1989 to N200,000 in 2008 and to its current N500.000 per depositor per deposit money bank since 2009 to constantly reflect realities of the economy.

Speaking earlier, President of Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Tony Ejikonye said the choice of the 2016 fair theme “Make It In Nigeria” was made in response to the current realities of the economy.

“Make it in Nigeria is a clarion call to governments at all levels to do the needful to improve the business environment and encourage the operations of the private sector, especially the small and medium enterprises.”