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Thursday, December 26, 2019 / 08.45PM / SEC Nigeria / Header Image Credit: SME Digest
The Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said that it has outlined a number of
initiatives in a bid to resolve the issue of unclaimed dividends in the capital
market.
Acting
Director General of the SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk, who spoke in Abuja, said in the new
year, the Commission would employ various strategies in a bid to ensure that
issues of unclaimed dividends are effectively tackled.
Uduk
said the issue of unclaimed dividends are legacy issues as they happened way
back in the past adding that right now the major problem has to do with
identity management which the capital market and other stakeholders are working
to resolve.
She said, "Right now you will not get unclaimed dividends from new issues. Part of the problem of unclaimed dividend has to do with identity management which we are doing all we can to educate the public and engage various stakeholders to obtain needed information."
"financial footprints like BVN have been added to registration and documentation requirements to help in identity management. The Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) and the registrars are working together to ensure that more information from legacy shareholders are collected to update their dividend data base."
Uduk
said of recent, there have been more engagements with shareholders on the issue
to ensure resolution.
"The
registrars don't have direct interface with shareholders, they deal directly
with stockbrokers. But there is a committee comprising of the SEC, the
registrars, the stockbrokers, the issuing houses, the CSCS and NSE working on
that in addition to the e-dividend management committee. The committee has come
up with a resolution which was adopted at the last Capital Market Committee
(CMC) meeting. Part of the resolutions was that stock brokers will update
information in respect of their clients.
"Before
2008, we had a lot of Nigerians who bought shares in the capital market and at
that time we did not have BVN numbers. Even some of them did not provide their
account numbers. What was agreed was that we would update information of such
shareholders. That information will be transmitted to the CSCS who will update
their own information and send them to the registrars.
The
Acting DG stated that it was also agreed that there will be no transaction in
respect of any account that information is not updated and on the part of
capital market operators they will be given a time frame within which to
resolve such issues.
Uduk
also disclosed that the Commission has approved the rule in respect of
electronic offering which by the time it commences will address problems
associated with unclaimed dividends.
"We
believe that by the time we commence that, it will address the issue of
unclaimed dividend. Before you can complete the application, the system will
validate your account number, the system will not accept incomplete
application. We believe that in addition to the e-dividend mandate, these other
initiatives that the Commission is doing with other stakeholders will address
the issue of unclaimed dividends" she affirmed.
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