The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigeria on Sunday announced that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, would this Thursday launch the revised capital market Master Plan that will serve as roadmap for the nation’s capital market regulations over the next few years. Similarly, the commission has scheduled the 3rd Quarter Capital Market Committee’s meeting for the same day in Lagos.
The 10-Year Master Plan, which was launched in 2014, is being revised to reflect the dynamism of the market and developments in financial technology, among others.
Commenting on the latest regulatory initiative of the commission, the Director-General, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, the Revised Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025 (RCMMP), explained that the revised Plan captured the challenges of our capital market in actualizing its role to drive national economic growth and more importantly, would serve as a blueprint to harness these opportunities to better position the capital market as the engine of our economic growth and development.
The Director-General said: “The first five years of the original Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025 (CMMP) implementation focused on market and governance reforms in the aftermath of the global financial crises of 2008 and the Nigerian market correction that continued into 2009, with significant success.
“During that period, stock certificates were dematerialized, dividend management was automated, corporate governance standards were improved, intermediaries were strengthened through revised capital requirements and risk based supervision, amongst several other initiatives implemented under the CMMP.
“Today, we face new challenges and opportunities. The pursuit of innovation and growth requires that we are open to opportunities and risks. Our choices are limited if we only seek opportunities within our traditional boundaries. Similarly, we inhibit our ability to grow if we do not curtail the threats of unregulated risk taking. Promoting entrepreneurial and innovative outcomes, therefore, requires balancing our openness and more appetite for risk-taking with the critical need to protect investors.
“It is important to contextualize our aspirations within the fundamental objectives of market integrity and investor protection while pursuing economic growth. The RCCMP has provided a framework and outlined strategic initiatives that will help embrace and unlock these opportunities in our capital market”, he added.
Yuguda expressed the commission’s appreciation to the Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSDA) for financing the RCMMP and to the capital market community for keying into the commission’s vision and committing to support the implementation of the Plan.
It would be recalled that the Commission unveiled the 10-Year Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP) in November 2014 and had been implementing the stipulated guidelines over the years, which were aimed at repositioning the nation’s capital market as an attractive investment destination and a critical facilitator of capital formation for the accelerated growth and development of the Nigerian economy.
