NDIC begins payment of Heritage Bank customers’ funds

Heritage Bank customers have begun receiving funds from The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) deposited in the bank two weeks after the bank lost its license.

“I cried when I lost my hard-earned N10,000 to the Heritage Bank Plc debacle. But somehow, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation found my other bank account and paid me,” Ayodeji Olowe,founder Lendsqr, loan management system.

The Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday June 4, revoked the licence of Heritage Bank Plc with immediate effect following breaches of banking legislation.

Read also: Heritage Bank: What you didn’t know

NDIC had said it was going to make payment of deposit insurance coverage claims amounting to a maximum of N5 million to depositors.

Before the regulatory hammer on Heritage Bank, the CBN said the bank had continued to suffer and had no reasonable prospects of recovery, thereby making the revocation of the license the next necessary step.

Heritage Bank traces its roots to the late 1970s, when it was founded as Societe Generale Bank (Nigeria), by the late Olusola Saraki.

In January 2006, the Central Bank closed down Societe Generale on account of failure to meet new minimum capital requirements of N25 billion for a national bank. Societe Generale successfully challenged the closure in court.

In 2012, the core investor in Heritage Bank, IEI Plc, through IEI Investments Limited, acquired the Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria license from the Central Bank of Nigeria.