Yemisi Izuora
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has told Nigerians to desist from investing their money in online and block-chain currencies schemes.
NDIC Managing Director, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, had on the corporation’s special day at the 2017 Enugu International Trade Fair said the warning became necessary to save investments and money of Nigerians.
“I wish to draw attention to emergence of the various Ponzi schemes, popularly called Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM) and other forms of digital and block-chain currencies.
“These ponzi schemes also came in form of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Monero, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Onecoin for medium of exchange and web based transactions which are neither authorised by the CBN nor insured by the NDIC,’’
Umaru, who was represented by Mr Nicolas Ibrahim, the NDIC Controller at Enugu Zonal Office, said.
Umaru also warned members of the public against activities of some co-operative societies that had gone beyond their primary mandate of accepting contributions from their members.
“I wish to emphasise that cooperative societies are established to mobilise savings from their members only.
“I therefore call on non-members not to patronise them as they are neither licensed as deposit taking financial institutions nor insured by the NDIC,’’ he said.
The President of ECCIMA, Rev. Ugochukwu Chime, described the role of NDIC as significant in the protection of depositors’ fund with banks and other financial institutions.
Chime said that NDIC remained a great back-up for Nigerian banking public who had lost their deposits whenever crisis occurred in the financial system.