The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Sunday, said it has phased out unclaimed dividends in the Nigerian capital market, stating that henceforth, there would be no future unclaimed dividends on those currently being declared by companies.
In a statement in Abuja, Ms. Mary Uduk, acting Director-General of SEC, said the commission had gone far in addressing the unclaimed dividends problem, stating that the decision to eliminate it completely, going forward, was a major milestone.
Uduk who was represented in a television interview by Mr. Okey Umeano, the Head, Office of the Chief Economist of SEC, said the commission had engaged Nigeria Interbank Settlement System to make use of the Bank Verification Number and had gotten the Central Securitas Clearing System, CSCS, and the registrars working towards ensuring a significant reduction.
She said: “More importantly, we know that there would be no future unclaimed dividends, there would be no addition to the unclaimed dividends profile and we count that as a success.
“We believe that once we solve the identity issues we have presently, the problem of unclaimed dividends will be a thing of the past. Also, we have continued with our education of the market, we are making more efforts towards awareness on what stakeholders need to know to make the market more attractive, make it better and protect the investors more.”
Uduk said that the commission was continuing the implementation of the 10-year capital market master plan to make the market more attractive to investors.
She said, “This year, one of the things we decided to resolve was the unclaimed dividend problems as well as regularisation of multiple accounts. On all counts, we have made a lot of strides. Next year, we are picking a few other things such as derivatives trading, commodities trading ecosystem and strengthening the CIS segment of the market.”
The acting SEC boss stated that the issue around multiple subscriptions was still on, and urged affected investors to regularise their accounts so that their shares can become active and the investors can also get the benefits of investing in the market.
Uduk stated that the elimination of dividend warrants in the market had been a major game changer and urged investors to register for e-dividend to access the benefits.
