Nigeria: NDIC warns bank customers against falling prey to ponzi schemes

Bank depositors have been warned by the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) against falling prey to Ponzi schemes.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director of the NDIC, Mr. Bello Hassan.

He gave the warning at the on-going Abuja International Trade Fair, according to a statement by the organisation.

The NDIC MD who was represented by the Head of Public Affairs, Mr Bashir Nuhu said, “I would also like to serve a word of caution against patronizing unscrupulous services of ponzi schemes and illegal fund managers, otherwise called ‘wonder banks’ who masquerade as deposit-taking institutions to dupe unsuspecting members of the public of their hard-earned funds.

“They offer unrealistically high returns to lure their victims only to bolt away with their money. These entities are not licensed by the CBN as deposit-taking institutions and are therefore not covered by the deposit insurance.”

He warned that most ponzi scheme operators were not licensed by the NDIC, and that as a result, investors’ money was not protected. The risk of losing their deposits, according to the MD, was extremely high.

He said that the cooperation had recently increased the insured deposit limit to N500,000 for deposit money banks and N200,000 for microfinance bank clients. He explained that the NDIC was attending the Trade Fair as part of its public awareness campaign.

He said, “We engage in all the major trade fairs across the nation, not to market goods, but to market our services.

“We Inculcate banking habits, financial inclusion and inform the public about the dangers of not taking their money to the bank.

“We have developed an app to enable depositors to fill in their claims when their money is trapped in a bank and apply for their money.”