The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has said payment of about N16.18 billion to depositors of 20 liquidated financial institutions has begun.

It advised the affected depositors to forward relevant documents for verification and onward payment.

The Managing Director, Bello Hassan, made the disclosure during the NDIC Special Day at the ongoing 44th Kano International Trade Fair.

According to him, the affected banks include Liberty Bank; City Express Bank; Assurance Batik; Century Bank; Allied Bank; Financial Merchant Bank; Icon Merchant Bank; Progress Bank; Merchant Bank of Africa (MBA); Premier Commercial Bank and North South Bank, and Prime Merchant Bank.

Others are Commercial Trust Bank; Cooperative and Commerce Bank; Rims Merchant Bank; Pan African Bank; Fortune Bank; All States Trust Bank; Nigeria Merchant Bank and Amicable Bank.

Hassan said besides the 20 Money Deposited Banks (MDBs), the corporation recently revoked licences of 179 Microfinance Banks (MFBs) and four Primary Mortgage Banks (PMBs) for failure to meet their statutory responsibilities.

He said immediate payment had commenced within seven days of closure of the microfinance banks.

His words: “It’s Important to note that out of these, the NDIC has paid N1.5 billion to 41,034 depositors of 129 MFBs and PMBs. Payment is still ongoing and depositors with funds exceeding the standard will receive liquidation dividends after recovery of debts and sale of physical assets of the closed banks.”

Represented by a deputy director at Kano office, Rakiya Imam, the NDIC boss explained that in any event of bank failure, the insurance covers all depositors.

He said depositors of DMBs, PMBs,Non-Interest Banks (NIBs), Payment Service Banks (PSBs) and subscribers of Mobile Money Operators (MMOs) are insured in the threshold of N500,000 per person, while depositors of Microfinance Banks (MFBs) have a maximum insurance Iimit of N200,000 per person.