SEC Initiates Measures To Tackle Fraud, Unclaimed Dividends

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to provide capital market participants with unique identifiers in order to reduce fraud and the quantum of unclaimed dividends, a statement by the commission on Sunday said.

The Director-General, SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, stated this during a meeting with the Management of Nigeria Data Protection Bureau in Abuja weekend, according to the statement.

Yuguda said the identity management project already ongoing in the capital market was meant to ensure that every participant within the capital market had a unique identifier that would be given to them so that all capital market transactions would be secured and done on a Straight Through Processing basis, leaving very little human intervention in the processing of data.

The director-general said the commission decided to engage relevant stakeholders in a bid to resolve issues of identity management to tackle the problem of unclaimed dividends, the statement noted.

“The bureau and the commission can collaborate to ensure that institutions under my supervision should comply with NDPR as we have a lot of leverage over the institutions that work in the capital market so, we can put more emphasis on compliance in our interaction,” he said.

In his response, National Commissioner Data Protection Bureau, Dr Vincent Olatunji, commended the SEC on its robust data policy and expressed the readiness of the Bureau to collaborate with the Commission.

Olatunji stated that due to the fact that the issue of data was a global one as almost everything online, there was a need to ensure that personal data were safeguarded and adequately protected and processed within adequate regulations in the country and internationally.

He said, “The whole world is a global village, and we are constantly interacting over various issues. The sector had the highest contribution to our GDP last year and that speaks volumes. Over 104 million Nigerians go on the internet daily and now we are looking at digitizing everything.

“We are committed to ensuring the protection of the data of Nigerians and to ensure we have globally competitive businesses as most countries will not want to go into business with you if you do not have your data protection and a supervising authority in place.”