By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has warned Nigerians to be cautious of transacting any financial business with four companies.
In a notice signed by the management of the agency, the four organisations blacklisted are Broker Capitals Limited, Tetris Group Limited, MTinvesting, and NBIMarkets.
SEC, in the circular, explained that the reason for raising this alarm against the firms was because of a report from the Commissione Nazionale per le Soecieta’ e la Borsa (CONSOB), the Italian securities regulator, which blacklisted the e-commerce companies and blocked their websites for fraudulent e-trading and unauthorized offering of financial services.
In the statement, SEC said it had not registered the organisations to offer any investment scheme to Nigerians, declaring any of their products in the country as illegal.
“The commission also wishes to draw the attention of the Nigerian investing public that the aforementioned companies are not registered by the SEC Nigeria, and the investment schemes promoted by these entities are also not authorised by the SEC.
“In view of the above, the general public is hereby WARNED that any person dealing with the named Companies in any capital market-related business is doing so at his/her own risk,” the agency said.
It was gathered that the CONSOB banned the firms which provide online financial services because they “leverage the complexity of their operations and limited understanding of most prospective investors to conceal details of their activities, thus, plunging most investors into taking uninformed decisions.”
This has forced CONSOB to urge “investors to adopt the greatest diligence to make informed investment choices in order to safeguard their savings, including checking the registration status or otherwise of such companies.”
Dipo Olowookere 
Adedapo Adesanya