Despite the confidence crisis rocking the global financial system in recent times, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) yesterday, reassured the business community of the safety of their deposits in the banking industry.
Managing Director of the Corporation, Mr Bello Hassan, who gave the assurance on the sidelines of the ongoing 2021 workshop for Business Editors and Finance Correspondents in Gombe, Gombe State, on the theme “Ending Extreme Disruption: Resilience and Reinvention for Banking System Stability and Deposit Insurance”, said the Nigerian banking industry remains one of the strongest and most robust in the world.
Hassan, who said the NDIC had achieved 97 per cent coverage of insured depositors, also noted that the existing regulatory failure resolution decision not to allow any more bank failures would continue to guide the actions of CBN and the NDIC in managing issues of insolvency and other health challenges facing banks to ensure that depositors are adequately protected.
He, however, warned that the management of the NDIC in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would not hesitate to sanction banks that create opportunities for cybercriminals to defraud or gain unlawful access to customers’ accounts through lax firewall measures and other protective mechanisms meant to safeguard depositors from losing their hard earned money to cybercrime.
This was even as he urged banks to be proactive in their operations so as to be steps ahead of cyber criminals.
On the misunderstanding around the seemingly simple but knotty issue of the NDIC’s deposit insurance coverage limits by stakeholders, Hassan said the issue has become so fundamental and needed to be thoroughly interrogated in the interest of all depositors.