NDIC kickstarts payment of Heritage Bank customers

Two weeks after the bank lost its license, customers of Heritage Bank started receiving money from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) that had been put in the bank.

 “I cried when the Heritage Bank Plc fiasco cost me my hard-earned N10,000. Nevertheless, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation managed to locate my second bank account and reimburse me,” said Ayodeji Olowe, the creator of the loan management system Lendsqr.

Due to violations of banking laws, the Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday, June 4, immediately suspended Heritage Bank Plc’s license.

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

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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.