The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday reported that the unclaimed dividends in Nigeria’s capital market had risen to about N190 billion as many investors failed to claim their investment return accruals.
The Director-General of the commission, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, made this disclosure during the commission’s virtual second Capital Market Committee (CMC) briefing which was held in Lagos.
The capital market regulator also hinted that the commission was collaborating with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) on the e-dividend portal, which is now undergoing upgrading and data repairs.
Noting that unclaimed dividends are still a recurring problem in the market, Yuguda identified identity management, and multiple subscriptions as some of the challenges the SEC was facing in its efforts to address the lingering problem of unclaimed dividends in the market.
He explained: “The estimated figure of unclaimed dividends so far in the market stands at N190 billion. The SEC is working with NIBSS to make changes to the electronic dividend portal which is currently going through some form of upgrading and repair.
“We are working very hard to ensure we reduce the number of unclaimed dividends and this is why we are upgrading the e-dividend portal with NIBSS to restore investors’ dividends and reduce unclaimed dividends and we reiterate that every person, who has come to the capital market and invested money, should be able to get his dividends as and when due”, the SEC boss added.
On the progress made so far by the commission on the market’s Revised Capital Market Master Plan (RCMMP), Yuguda pointed out that though the RCMMP was designed as a 10-year plan, it had achieved so much in the capital market as SEC had strengthened its regulations and achieved so much in the implementation of the plan over the past years.
He explained that one of the challenges in the implementation of the RCMMP had been deployment of the needed technology, adding, however, that the commission was working on launching its new state-of-the-art technology infrastructure in 2024.
Yuguda noted that the capital market remained a major source of raising funds for medium and long term programmes of the government and urged the Federal Government to explore the opportunities in the bourse to fund major infrastructures in the country.
Speaking during the virtual meeting of the CMC, the Commissioner of Operations at SEC, Mr. Dayo Obisan, said that one of the major challenges the commission had been contending with had to do with the beneficiaries getting access to claim their dividends.
According to him, the SEC management is putting its efforts to ensure that investors update their bank details and other information and claim their dividends but that some of them still fill their details wrongly.
Obisan maintained that the SEC was working very hard to ensure bonuses get transferred to beneficiaries, capture everyone who is in the market so that its data is more robust and enable it to work effectively on reducing unclaimed dividends.
The Capital Market Committee (CMC) was established to serve as a medium for the exchange of ideas among market stakeholders as well as for feedback to the SEC on how to sustainably improve market activities and regulation.
