Over the weekend, the Acting Director General of Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Mary Uduak, disclosed that the regulatory agency has a measure in place to compensate investors who genuinely incur losses in the capital market.
According to her, this measure is part of a wider set of strategies that have been established for the purpose of protecting investors, boosting their confidence, and ultimately expanding the capital market and the role it plays in developing the Nigerian economy.
Ms Uduak made this disclosure while addressing journalists in Uyo during the now-ended 2018 SEC Academy for Financial Journalists.
Giving further explanation about how the compensation process works, the SEC boss said the National Investor Protection Fund (NIPF) was created solely for this purpose. It will compensate losses incurred by investors and ultimately boost domestic retail investment.
This measure is very much like the E-dividend Mandate Management System and the Direct Cash Settlement initiative which were all put in place by SEC to ensure the protection of the investing public from unforeseen contingencies inherent in the market.
“To further boost investors’ confidence, enhance transparency and eliminate fraud in the market, the Direct Cash Settlement (DCS) initiative was introduced. DCS is an initiative that allows proceeds from sale of investors’ shares to settle directly into their account as against the system whereby the proceeds go to broker’s account before passing it to the investor. From inception, the process has been voluntary, but was made compulsory from September, 2017.’’
Speaking further, she also stated that SEC has developed and implemented the Corporate Governance Scorecard as a tool for measuring compliance to SEC’s Corporate Governance Codes, as well as ensuring that quoted companies adhere to required governance practices.
Reacting to a question about how much SEC has protected the investors of the now liquidated Skye Bank Plc, Ms Uduk said the Commission has been working in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria on the matter. She also revealed that the Commission will ensure to collaborate more with the CBN in order to forestall future events that might endanger the investments of shareholders.
