By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Chairman of the Ibadan Zone Shareholders Association (IBZSA), Mr Akin Akinduro, has appealed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make it possible for shareholders to see the name of company paying dividends on their bank alerts.
This was one of the requests made by Mr Akinduro during a one-day seminar organised by the group last week in Ibadan, Oyo State.
At the event tagged Reducing the Incidence of Unclaimed Dividends Through e-Dividend Registration, the IBZSA chief also urged SEC to intensify activities to entice investors to embrace the e-dividend registration, suggesting that payment of fees by shareholders for the registration should be cancelled.
He described the multiple account regularisation, which was extended to December 2019, as a good decision, but emphasised that it should be an ongoing process, for now, as many accounts were under processing, particularly deceased shareholders.
“Standardisation of Registrars’ operation should be introduced across board, while rules on transmission should be reviewed. Investors with small units should be given consideration because the transmission process, which is very hectic, has discouraged the families with small investments from processing them,” he said.
Mr Akinduro explained that the seminar was put together to complement the efforts of the regulatory authorities to curb the incessant increase of unclaimed dividends.
According to him, the forum was also organised to educate shareholders in the zone comprising Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti and Kwara States on how to collect their unclaimed dividends.
He said the volume of unclaimed dividends in the capital market was a matter of concern to both the regulators and the operators, commending efforts by SEC in tackling the issue through the introduction of various innovations into the Nigerian capital market, including the increase in the capital base of stockbroking firms, CSCS Direct Cash Settlement of proceeds from secondary market transaction into personal bank account of investor’s choice and e-dividend mandate initiatives.
The Ibadan Zone Shareholders Association was created in 1992 by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and incorporated under Part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Decree, No 1 of 1990, with perpetual succession and common seal.
