The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will introduce electronic Initial Public Offering (e-IPO) in the capital market in 2019.
The Executive Commissioner, Corporate Services of SEC, Henry Rowlands, said this yesterday at a seminar for finance correspondents in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Rowlands said the aim was to further digitalise the capital market with a focus on modelling it after those of countries like Kenya, South Africa and few other African countries that had commenced the electronic stock market launch.
In her welcome remarks, the Ag. Director General of SEC, Mary Uduk, said so far, 2.55 million accounts had been mandated under the e-Dividend Mandate Management System (e-DMMS) that was developed to reduce the quantum of unclaimed dividends in the market and also enable direct payment of dividends to investors into their nominated bank accounts.
Uduk said, “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 accounts as against the system whereby the proceeds go to brokers’ accounts before they pass them to the investors. From inception, the process has been voluntary, but was made compulsory from September, 2017.”
She also noted that SEC had introduced measures to increase listing on the stock exchange.
“It is important to note that there is reduction of cost of issuance in the capital market in order to free up business resources and encourage new market participants thereby increasing the depth of the market which will also improve Nigeria’s rating in ‘global competitiveness’ and ‘Doing Business Index (DBI),” Uduk said
