Unclaimed dividends: Poor identification of investors major challenge, says SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says the lack of proper identification of investors is a key factor contributing to unclaimed dividends.

Speaking during a recent interview, Emomotimi Agama, SEC’s director-general, said this was identified as a major challenge by the commission and the committee for identity management for the capital market.

He said technology would play a crucial role in addressing this challenge with the SEC working to ensure that investors are properly identified to facilitate the payment of dividends.

“The SEC is in the forefront of making sure that the unclaimed dividends are reduced and at the end of the day completely erased,” Agama said.

“For the SEC, we will continue to do our best, we will employ technology, we will employ education, we will employ persuasion.

“We will employ every means that will cause people to understand the processes around claiming dividends, the processes around identification and the processes around making sure people understand what they need to do to get their dividends back.

“For us, any effort to reduce these unclaimed dividends will be a positive one.”

‘ACCESS E-DIVIDEND TO MANDATE ACCOUNTS’

The SEC boss called on investors to utilise the electronic dividend portal available on its official website to mandate their accounts.

He emphasised the safety of the process, urging investors to take advantage of the platform.

On June 25, the commission announced the launch of the revamped e-dividend mandate management system (e-DMMS) portal to curb the growth of unclaimed dividends.

According to the agency, the portal, which features a self-service interface, allows investors to mandate their accounts for e-dividend virtually without visiting a registrar or bank.

“if you access that portal from the SEC website, it is genuine. The only other website that is genuine that it can be accessed from is the Nigerian interbank settlement system website because that platform was built in conjunction with NIBSS,” he said.

“This is very important knowing fully well the cyber security threats that exist in this space.

“You cannot run away from the fact that a lot of people might be trying to clone the website like they do for other institutions. But my guide is simply go to the SEC website www.sec.gov.ng which is fully protected and access it.”

Agama said the request for a bank verification number (BVN) on the portal is necessary to authenticate the identity of investors.

“We need to verify that you are who you say you are. If the BVN provided does not match with your identity, it means it’s not yours,” the SEC DG said.

“As an institution, we try to protect the investor and protect us too as regulators. We will try to make it as easy as possible and also as protected as possible too.”

Agama said the issue of unclaimed dividends is an important topic for the commission because it speaks to the investors themselves.

He said investors enter the market to earn returns and when those returns do not reach them, it becomes a significant issue — adding that the commission takes the matter very seriously.