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Employees Of Skye Bank To Get Fresh Contract Under Polaris Bank – NDIC

Published

6 years ago

September 22, 2018

Emefiele had said the decision to revoke the licence of the old bank was taken following the inability of the owners of the bank to shore up the capital of the distressed bank which had earlier received a N350bn intervention in July 2016.

The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation has said that employees of the defunct Skye Bank Plc would be offered new contract terms under the management of Polaris Bank.

The Corporation said this in a statement made available to our correspondent on Saturday and signed by the Head Communications and Public Affairs, Mohammed Kudu.

The Central Bank had on Friday revoked the operating licence of Skye Bank Plc with immediate effect.

Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said during a press briefing in Lagos that Skye Bank would now be taken over by Polaris Bank, which would take over all the assets and liabilities of the defunct entity.

The NDIC in the statement said following the revocation of the operating license of Skye Bank by the CBN, the NDIC has commenced the processes for its liquidation.

The statement reads in part, “The NDIC carried out the Bridge Bank option to resolve the Skye Bank Plc in order make certain that its depositors are fully protected as their deposits with Polaris Bank limited remain insured under the NDIC Act.

“The customers of Skye Bank Plc can also continue to transact their businesses with Polaris Bank Limited thereby ensuring the non-disruption of their banking transactions.

“Furthermore, the adoption of the Bridge Bank model for the resolution Skye Bank Plc, guarantees that most of the employees of that bank will not lose their jobs and they will continue their employment with POLARIS Bank Limited under fresh contracts of employment.

“The NDIC, as Deposit Insurer, acted to ensure the continued safety of depositor’s funds and to proactively manage potential threats to financial system stability.”

He said, “Skye Bank requires urgent recapitalisation as it can no longer continue to live on borrowed times with indefinite liquidity support from the CBN. We have decided to establish a bridge bank, Polaris Bank, to assume the assets and liabilities of Skye Bank.

“The strategy is for AMCON to capitalise the bridge bank and begin the process of sourcing for investors to buy out AMCON. By this decision, the licence of Skye Bank is hereby revoked.”

Emefiele recalled that on July 4, 2016, the CBN took a regulatory action on Skye Bank that led to the resignation of its chairman, all non-executive directors on its board as well as the managing director, deputy managing director, and the two longest-serving executive directors on the management team.

At that time, he added, the action was informed by the unacceptable corporate governance lapses as well as the persistent failure of the bank to meet minimum thresholds in critical prudential and adequacy ratios, which culminated in the bank’s permanent presence at the CBN lending window