The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), on Wednesday reaffirmed that all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria remained safe and strong to continue to meet the financial needs of its customers and the nation’s development.
The corporation’s Mr. Bello Hassan, who made this clarification on the sidelines of a three-day capacity building workshop organised in Lagos by the Legal Department of the commission for law enforcement agencies, also debunked recent trending rumour about the purported plan of the monetary authorities to sell Polaris Bank Limited.
The deposit insurance expert at the event with the theme ‘Effective Investigation and Prosecution of Banking Malpractices that Led to Failure of Banks’ maintained that “banks that are operating within the country are sound in as much as their licences have not been revoked.”
Apparently reacting to the rumour on Polaris Bank’s sale, Hassan clarified: “If there is a problem, the regulator that issues the licence will be the one to revoke the licence. In as much as the licence is not revoked, you’re free to continue to bank with the institution; it means it is safe.”
According to him, the corporation usually carries out stress tests on banks on a monthly basis, to ascertain their financial soundness.
Hassan said: “In fact we do it on a monthly basis to ascertain the financial soundness of those banks and we see no red line.
“When we talk of key financial soundness indicators, we are talking about the capital adequacy and liquidity and the quality of the assets.
“Those two solid financial soundness indicators that you use to gauge the safety and soundness of these institutions are robust. So, based on that, the banks are safe and sound; continue to bank with them”, the Director General stressed.
It would be recalled that as the rumour that the monetary authorities were planning to sell Polaris Bank to private investors for N40 billion gained momentum on social media and other communication platform, the bank’s management debunked the rumour and assured its shareholders and the public of the lender’s soundness to sustain its operations.
Photo Caption
L-R: Ahmad Muhammad Ghali, representative of Executive Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; Mohammed Abubakar, Director Public Prosecution of the Federation and Hassan Bello, FCA, MD/CE, NDIC, at the 2022 Capacity Building Workshop for Law enforcement agencies with the theme ‘Effective Investigation and Prosecution of Banking Malpractices that led to Failure’ organised by NDIC in Lagos
