Amaka. Obiefuna

Nigerians have been advised to be careful in investing their monies in online online and block-chain currencies schemes. The advice is coming from the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).

Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim who is the Managing Director of the NDIC gave this advice on the corporation’s special day at the 2017 Enugu International Trade Fair, he said the warning became necessary to save investments and money of Nigerians.

Alhaji Umaru said: “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.

Warning against cooperative societies

He also warned as the activities of some cooperative societies, he said: “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.

On his part, 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.