NDIC Begins Payment to Heritage Bank Customers Following License Revocation
Customers of Heritage Bank have started receiving their funds from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), two weeks after the bank’s license was revoked.
Ayodeji Olowe, founder of Lendsqr, a loan management system, shared his relief, stating, “I cried when I lost my hard-earned N10,000 to the Heritage Bank Plc debacle. But somehow, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation found my other bank account and paid me.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked Heritage Bank’s license on June 4, citing breaches of banking legislation. The NDIC subsequently announced it would cover deposit insurance claims up to a maximum of N5 million per depositor.
Before the revocation, the CBN indicated that Heritage Bank had been struggling without any reasonable prospects of recovery, necessitating the revocation of its license.
Heritage Bank’s history dates back to the late 1970s when it was originally established as Societe Generale Bank (Nigeria) by the late Olusola Saraki. In January 2006, the Central Bank closed Societe Generale for failing to meet the new minimum capital requirements of N25 billion for a national bank. The closure was later successfully challenged in court by Societe Generale.
In 2012, IEI Investments Limited, the core investor in Heritage Bank, acquired the Societe Generale Bank of Nigeria license from the CBN, marking the rebirth of the institution as Heritage Bank.
