The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) on Monday said it had extended maximum deposit insurance coverage of N500,000 to individual subscribers under the mobile payment system in the country.

Director, Research, Policy and International Relations of NDIC, Mr Jacob Afolabi, said this at the 2015 Finance Correspondents Workshop in Ilorin.

According to Afolabi, the move was to protect the mobile subscribers who constitute most of the unbanked in the country.

He said each subscriber using the mobile money platform would be entitled to as much as N500,000 in case of failure in a deposit bank.

He added that the move was in the adoption of the pass-through deposit insurance scheme by the NDIC.

The director said that with the pass-through deposit insurance, the corporation had lifted the veil off the mobile money operators' account.

He said it would recognise individual subscribers in the pool account instead of treating the pool account as a single account.

This, Afolabi said, would engender confidence in the under-banked, to increase the level of financial inclusion in the country.

He noted that although there were challenges on mobile money transactions, the corporation was working at eliminating such challenges to boost financial inclusion in the country.

"The NDIC is fully committed to ensuring that the deposits of mobile money depositors are fully insured and protected should a bank fail," he said.(NAN )