How we are solving rising unclaimed dividend in Nigerian capital market – DG SEC

Harmonizing a single unique identity management system and updating the details of investors, are some of the elaborate ways the Nigerian capital market is solving the rising issue of unclaimed dividend, according to Lamido Yuguda, director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This has meant the exchange, working for hand in gloves with the Central Bank (CBN) and other stakeholders in the markets to come up with one unique identity, not only for investors but also for issuers and operators in the market, Yuguda said.

The SEC director-general who spoke at the ongoing 2020 investment and capital market conference organised by BusinessDay, said there has been a rise in the amount of unclaimed dividend even on relatively new issues; and this has been at the heart of the exchange to solve.

Yuguda explained that in resolving the issues, the exchange is looking at leveraging Bank Verification Number (BVN) as a single identity as opposed to having numerous identity systems.

The exchange has also mandated all Capital Market Operators (CMOs) to update the KYC of their customers. This would help in having the right details of investors, he said.

“We have gotten numerous identity management systems but we are looking at harmonising all into one particularly the BVN since we know that capital market investors start with a bank account and end with a bank account,”

“This is still in the early stage but we should be able to come up with a framework within 12 months to address this,” Yuguda said but didn’t provide the exact amount of unclaimed divided sitting in the exchange.