March 16, 2020/SEC Nigeria
The Securities and Exchange Commission (the Commission) in furtherance of its investor protection and market development mandate has over the years, and in collaboration with other market stakeholders, worked actively to – amongst others – ensure accountability, transparency and stability in the capital market. In line with the foregoing, the Commission desires to forestall, reduce and eventually eliminate the incidence of unclaimed dividend to ensure that investors receive the benefits accruing to their investments, timeously and with ease.
Consequently, in order to achieve the above mandate, the Commission hereby directs as follows:
- Brokers should capture full information in respect of new clients and update information of their existing clients. The information captured should include:
- Bank account details
- Bank verification number (BVN)
- Telephone number and/or email address
Such information should be validated against the Nigerian Interbank Settlement Systems Limited (NIBSS) BVN validation portal.
Brokers should update their Order Management System to enable the system flag off accounts with incomplete KYC information.
- Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) should send to all Brokers, in an editable format, a list of the respective Broker clients with incomplete records, for the Brokers to update and revert to CSCS.
- No trades/transaction should be effected on any client/investor account without an updated and validated KYC information.
- Where a transaction is consummated on an account without the relevant KYC or updated and validated information, the Broker shall be sanctioned accordingly.
- CSCS should ensure transmission of full information to the Registrars following transactions.
- Registrars should ensure that new or updated investors/shareholders information transmitted to them are properly captured in the relevant company’s register of members
The relevant Capital Market Operators are hereby advised to note that monitoring and enforcement of strict compliance with the foregoing will commence on April 1, 2020.
