14th December, 2015
The advice, contained in a statement issued by the management of SEC in Abuja on Monday, said the registration would enable immediate processing and upload to the e-Dividend Mandate Management System (e-DMMS).
According to the statement, the service will be free for the next 90 days, starting from Dec. 14 after which a fee of N100 will apply.
It recalled that SEC in collaboration with Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System launched the e-Dividend payment platform in July.
It said the launch was in a bid to eradicate the difficulty encountered by retail investors in claiming their dividends through their savings accounts.
The Director-General of SEC, Mr Mounir Gwarzo, said the platform that it would address the lingering unclaimed dividend issue in the market.
“ The platform, which is part of the 10-year capital market master-plan, will address the issues of non-payment of dividends into savings accounts.
“The era of stale dividend and huge unclaimed dividend in the market will be a thing of the past with the launch of the e-Dividend payment platform.
“ The commission will conduct intensive training for bankers and registrars on the usage of the new portal,” Gwarzo said in the statement.
The statement emphasised the determination of the commission to implement the capital market master-plan to transform the market for the benefit of all stakeholders.
It said the commission posted a notice on its website advising the registrars to exercise caution while validating names generated by the system to avoid dissimilarity with the physical forms.
It said that all registrars’ offices and accredited outlets should be points of upload of completed e-Dividend Mandate forms by investors.
Explaining the modality for the use of the portal, it said, “ every registrar shall validate investor’s shareholder account number, name, signature and Clearing House Number .’’
It said the process should be “ followed with upload of scanned copy of completed e-Dividend Mandate Form(s) on to the portal for immediate access by the investor’s nominated bank for the verification of his/her bank account details.
“ Registrars shall exercise caution when validating names generated by the system for the clearing house number, shareholder account number and bank account number against the physical form.
“ This will ensure that there is a reasonable level of congruence before the document is accepted and saved on the portal.’’ .
The statement further said that the receiving bank might reject the mandate by registrars if the signature on the mandate did not tally with the specimen signature of the account holder in the bank.
It added that investors should be educated to complete separate forms for each shareholder account number.
It said this was important because upload of e-Dividend Mandate Forms would be on basis of individual shareholder number and company of investment indicated by the investor on the physical e-Dividend Mandate Form.
“ To mitigate errors in the treatment of e-Dividend Mandate Forms, registrars shall institute a marker-checker system that enables the verification and upload of e-Dividend Mandate Form(s) by a registrar.
“ Also an uploader, subject to confirmation and approval by a registrar checker is required,’’ the statement said. (