SEC consolidates 3.4bn shares, reduces unclaimed dividends

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced considerable progress in the implementation of its consolidation of multiple shareholder accounts and electronic Dividend Mandate Management System, as about 3.4bn shares have been consolidated.

The commission urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to include e-DMMS charges in its Guideline for Bank Charges.

Acting director-general of the SEC, Ms Mary Uduk, disclosed this to newsmen at the end of the Second Quarter Capital Market Committee Meeting in Lagos.

She explained that the CBN had published charges for the banks, leaving an established charge for any transaction carried out by any bank.

“The e-dividend charge is not part of the charges from the CBN, and so because of that investors are having issues with banks where, for instance, they are charged for so much e-transaction that is not listed as bank charges they do not know.

“They complained to us and so we decided to engage CBN to actually make this part of their charges, and so any e-dividend carried out will be charged by the CBN.

“This came up as a result of us stopping the payment of the e-dividend mandate as we were underwriting the cost for the initiative before we mandated investors to pay a token of N150 per mandate.

“We believe the capital market of our dreams can only be achieved through the collaboration of all stakeholders,” Uduk said.

Uduk told reporters that 2.7m share accounts had been captured under the e-DMMS, adding that with the help of the Multiple Subscription Committee, 3.4bn shares were effectively consolidated.

The committee “informed the meeting that the Committee of Heads of Banking Operations had agreed to collaborate with the commission to display banners in (their) banking halls all over the country, sensitising the public on the regularisation of multiple subscription of shares.”

Similarly, stockbrokers and registrars are requested “to make available to the Committee on Multiple Subscription Account, on a periodic basis, the number of regularised accounts.”

Secretaries of listed companies, she added, “have also agreed to display similar information on their websites and offices.”

The meeting rose with a resolve that the SEC should engage relevant stakeholders on the e-Dividend and Multiple Subscription Accounts, to ensure “that complete investor data are transferred among operators such as brokers, registrars and the Central Securities Clearing System.

SEC is also to help discourage unclaimed dividends from building up from securities of newly-listed companies, just as modalities should be developed for validating shareholders’ registers, such that “registrars are furnished with incomplete information such as missing account numbers.”

The acting DG noted that the issue of unclaimed dividend is dynamic, given that as the registrars are clearing the old heap, new ones mount.

Further, Uduk said that CMC’s Identity Management Committee gave updates of its meeting with National Information Technology Development Agency on the implications of the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation on capital market operations. There are plans, the committee announced, “to develop standardised data form, which seeks to consolidate registration and access to processes in the capital market by investors.”

After discussions on the issue, the CMC urged SEC to invite NITDA to make a presentation on the impact of the NDPR on the capital market at the 2019 Q3 CMC meeting.

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