ATEDO PETERSIDE SHEDS MORE LIGHT

The Chairman of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc has shed more light on the investigation of its Bank by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) " They were acting on a petition by the protagonist in the law suit and we are co-operating with FRCN and address any concerns that arise" he said. He explained the payment of franchise /management fees by Stanbic IBTC to Standard Bank South Africa explaining there is an ongoing suit filed which has been publicized by those who have been incentivized.It pertains to certain agreements between Stanbic IBTC and Standard Bank of South Africa and the fees that the former is contracted towards paying to the latter. This suit was brought by two minority shareholders. "If Nigeria through NOTAP (National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion )says in August 2015 that certain arrangements are not allowed for Nigerian banking subsidiaries or any other specific sector that they ( NOTAP) now wish to disallow (on the back of a sharp drop in oil prices) and then notifies the Nigerian subsidiary that it’s outstanding applications seeking and awaiting NOTAP approval for certain payments for prior years will not be approved then all that the Nigerian subsidiary can do is to inform its parent and say :- “hey the authorities here have barred us from paying you.” It is the parent company that will decide whether it wants to appeal this ruling or suffer some financial loss that it may have to absorb from this adverse ruling. As the Chairman of the subsidiary I help to ensure that the board takes the appropriate decisions in line with regulatory directives and known accounting standards". He denied putting pressure on NOTAP to approve remittances using his influence as a member of the National Economic Management Team. He also spoke on payments of a scip dividend in dispute saying "certain shareholders having elected and received their cash dividend are now seeking to prevent shareholders who elected to receive their cash dividend from doing so". He stressed that Stanbic IBTC is a well capitalized bank and has sufficient liquidity as such the bank will not be affected by the on going investigations.