The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) said last Thursday in Kaduna that Savanah Bank and Societe Generale Bank were not liquidated by the organisation.

Fielding questions from newsmen after marking NDIC Day at the Kaduna International trade Fair, the Managing Director of the Corporation, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, said the licences of the two banks were intact.

“Although the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had withdrawn their licences, they fought the withdrawal in the court and their licences were returned,” he said.

He said the NDIC had not taken over the banks and was not responsible for the refund of the affected banks’ customers.

Ibahim, represented by the corporation’s Director, Internal Audit, Alhaji Ibrahim Tafida, urged customers of the banks to contact their management for the payment of their deposits.

The managing director said that a joint special examination was conducted in 2009 by the CBN and NDIC, which revealed that 10 banks were in serious financial condition as a result of weak corporate governance.

He said the problem the banks found themselves was due to massive insider abuses, imprudent dissipation of depositors’ funds, undisclosed large credit exposures to related entities, inadequate capital, poor risk management and liquidity.

Umaru said the problems gave rise to the CBN’s injection of N620 billion into the eight of the 10 affected banks and the removal of their chief executives.

“The CBN also gave the eight intervened banks up to September 30, 2011 deadline to recapitalize, find merger partners or face liquidation

“While five intervened banks found merger partners, the three others could neither recapitalize nor found any merger partners before the CBN’s deadline.”

He said the NDIC in August 2011 established three bridge banks, Mainstream Bank, Keystone Bank and Enterprise Bank, which subsequently assumed the assets and liabilities of erstwhile AfriBank, BankPHB, and Spring Bank, respectively.

He said the NDIC had paid N3.3 billion out of the N5.2 billion insured deposits of 35 banks that were liquidated between 1994 and 2005.

“In addition, the corporation had paid N6.2 billion out of N11 billion liquidation dividend that was declared to depositors of the banks,” he said.

He said the NDIC had so far paid N2.26 billion to depositors of 103 shut Micro-Finance Banks (MFBs), as at March 2012, while the continuation of the payment to depositors was transferred to eight agent banks across the country.