Nigerian capital market will be making a good history in Africa with its e-dividend initiative as investors are to get value for dividend paid within 24 hours through the electronic dividend payment platform.

The Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mounir Gwarzo, who made the revelation, said, late receipt of dividends value by investors would be a thing of the past following the introduction of the e-dividend.

He made this known while speaking at the e-Dividend Sensitisation Town Hall Meeting in Lagos, explaining that e-dividend platform automatically allows dividends to be credited directly into shareholders’ accounts within 24 hours of payment by the company.

According to him, this is one of the initiatives being implemented by the commission as part of its 10 year Capital Market Master Plan to encourage retail investors to return to the market and thereby deepen the market.

“One of our strategy is to target the retail investor, the only way we can deepen the market and ensure that the market is within our own grip is to ensure that the retail investor comes into the market. It is only the domestic investor that no matter the condition of the market, will stay with us, what we have been experiencing in the market is the dominance of the foreign investor where anytime they want to move out of the market they get out and anything they want to come in they do so. Seeing what happens in the market, we decided that the best thing it to get the retail investor and our approach is not to go to them and be telling them to come back. But identify the issues why they are not in the market and deal with such issues,” he said.

He said it is because of the benefits Investors can obtain from e-dividend registration that is why the Commission decided to embark on the sensitisation campaign on the need for them to key into the e-dividend platform by visiting their banks and registrars to complete the process.