Unclaimed Dividend: SEC Adopts Measures To Tackle Multiple Subscriptions

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted new measures to tackle the lingering problem of multiple subscriptions in the nation’s capital market

Director-General of SEC, Lamido Yuguda disclosed this while addressing Journalists at a virtual press briefing after Capital Market Committee Meeting.

Yuguda said that the Commission has already constituted a committee on identity management to harmonize various databases of investors and facilitate data accuracy in the market.

According to him, the outcome of the committee’s assignment would address the challenges of identity management and help tackle some of the issues of unclaimed dividends, direct cash settlements and multiple subscriptions.

He also said that unclaimed dividend has continued to be on the increase, adding that figure has risen to N170 billion as at December 2020 from N158.4 billion recorded in 2019.

As little as over N2 billion in 1999, the figure rose sharply to N158.4 billion as at the end of 2019, representing an increase of 32 per cent from N120 billion recorded in 2018.

He Linked the rising figure to irregularities in identity management and multiple subscriptions from investors.