By Babajide Komolafe

NIGERIA Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) of the United States Department of Treasury have commenced discussions on strategies for resolving bank failures in the country.

Meanwhile the United States agency  has commended the NDIC on the establishment of a world class academy that serves as a reference point for capacity building on Deposit Insurance System (DIS) for the African continent.

The Regional Adviser of the US Treasury, Mr. Philip Morris made the commendation in Abuja during a meeting between the NDIC management and delegates from the Office of Technical Assistance convened to explore areas of collaboration towards the enhancement of training needs of the NDIC Academy.

According to Morris, the corporation’s reputation in the international community was already acknowledged by the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI). He added that several African countries now counted on the NDIC Academy for the capacity building for members of their staff. Morris expressed his confidence that the OTA’s collaboration would further strengthen the Academy’s efforts towards achieving its vision of becoming the model deposit insurance training institute in Africa and the Asia regions by the year 2020.

In his remarks, the Managing Director/Chief Executive, NDIC,  Mr. Umaru Ibrahim described the visit as a crucial step towards enhancing service delivery in the operations of the Corporation to address current challenges in the banking sector. He expressed his optimism that the OTA would collaborate with the Corporation in the areas of contingency planning and simulation for bank crisis, including failure resolution strategies such as the Purchase & Assumption (P&A) and bridge bank options already explored by the Corporation.

Ibrahim also  lauded the current efforts of the OTA to contribute to the development of expertise on curriculum development, course design, delivery and evaluation for the NDIC Academy.