The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has announced that account name discrepancies on alternate accounts linked to the Bank Verification Number (BVN) of some defunct Heritage Bank customers are causing delays in the payment of their insured deposits.
Mr. Bello Hassan, Managing Director of NDIC, shared this update with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja. He stated that the corporation had already paid a substantial amount to depositors of the defunct bank without BVN-related issues.
Hassan urged depositors of the defunct bank who had yet to receive their insured deposits to visit the NDIC’s website and complete their verification forms to facilitate their payments. “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,” he explained.
He noted that some discrepancies between account names have caused challenges in linking certain accounts. “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,” Hassan added.
Regarding depositors with more than five million naira with the bank, Hassan mentioned that they would be paid from the liquidation dividend. He indicated that NDIC has started the process of disposing of the bank’s physical assets and is also working to recover loans and advances granted by the bank. “That is what we will use in paying those liquidation dividends. We are not going to wait until we recover everything. As we recover, we will also advertise to say that we will pay liquidation dividends so that concerned depositors will be on the lookout for alerts in their accounts,” he said.
On June 3, 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the banking licence of Heritage Bank Plc due to its failure to improve its financial performance, which posed a threat to financial stability.
