Uche Usim
The Managing Director of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, (NDIC), Mr Umaru Ibrahim, on Monday revealed the strategic steps taken to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19-induced lockdown on the Nigerian financial sector.
Addressing journalists in Lagos at the 2020 Workshop for Business Editors and Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN), Umaru stated that by activating its Crisis Management Plan, it successfully prevented the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on its activities and that of other financial institutions under its supervision.
“As disruptive as the COVID-19 pandemic has been to other sectors of the country, I would like to humbly state that the NDIC was not caught napping. Based on its robust and proactive Enterprise Risk Management strategy, the corporation immediately swung into action by activating its Crisis Management Action Plan to prevent any negative impact on the operations of the NDIC and the financial institutions under its supervision”.
However, the NDIC boss admitted that the pandemic has negatively disrupted social and economic activities across the globe, adding that this impact impinged on the financial sector and its regulators and consumers.
“The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant disruptions to social and economic activities had negative consequences on all lives and nations across the world. The threat of recession, increased national debt, increase in non-performing loans and potential financial crisis has put pressure on regulators to reassestheir supervisory activities to strengthen their capabilities to address these challenges and forestall financial crises.
“The emergence of digital financial services enabled by financial technology (Fintech) has enhanced efficiency in the financial sector but has also posed new challenges to financial regulators and consumers. This became more apparent during the pandemic when the lockdown protocols hindered physical access to financial services, encouraging more Nigerians to rely on digital financial services. Inevitably, the media was also adversely impacted by the pandemic. Our attempts to tackle the erosion of public confidence due to the prevalence of fake news, particularly via social media, became a matter of serious concern,” the NDIC boss stated.