SEC, Stakeholders Collaborate on Master Plan Implementation

By Lance Momodu Jnr

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is to involve appropriate stakeholders on the implementation of its 10-year Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP).
Categorically, the engagements would be contingent on E-Dividend registration and Multiple Accounts regularisation in an effort to decrease the unreceived dividends profile in the Capital Market.
This was disclosed by Acting Director General of the SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk, at the end of the Second Quarter Capital Market Committee Meeting in Lagos.
As part of the engagement, Brokers and Registrars are expected to periodically make available to the Committee on Multiple Subscription Account (CMSA), the number of regularized accounts.
Uduk said, “certain aspects of engagement are, making sure that complete investor data are transferred among operators such as Brokers, Registrars and CSCS, to discourage unclaimed dividends arising from securities of recently-listed companies”.
According to Uduk, “ Another thing we need to do is developing the modalities for validating register of members, where the registrars are furnished with incomplete information such as missing account numbers”.

Following the expiration of free e-dividend mandate registration period offered to investors, the Securities and Exchange

The SEC boss also unveiled plans to partner the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure that e-dividend charges are included in the guideline for bank charges. This follows the expiration of the free e-Dividend mandate registration period offered to investors by the SEC.

According to Uduk, “SEC has been underwriting the e-dividend charges of N1.50 kobo but since we stopped, we have received a lot of complaints from investors due to the e-dividend charges.