The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says two genuine websites from which investors can access the e-dividend portal are its website, www.sec.gov.ng, and the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) website.

Emomotimi Agama, the director-general, SEC, said this in an interview with journalists in Lagos.

Mr Agama said that investors could access the e-dividend portal through its official website to mandate their accounts safely and claim their dividends

Mr Agama stated that this information was important because of the cyber security threats that existed in the internet space.

He said: “If you access the e-dividend portal from the SEC website, it is genuine.

“We cannot deny the fact that some unscrupulous elements might be trying to clone the website as they do for other institutions.

“However, my guide is simply for investors to use the SEC website on www.sec.gov.ng, which is fully protected to access the portal.

“The only other website that is genuine for the e-dividend portal to be accessed from is the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) website because the portal was built in conjunction with NIBSS.

The director general also clarified that requesting for investor’s Bank Verification Number (BVN) on those portals was not out of place.

According to him, the BVN platform is, for now, the most authentic retrieval source of information in the financial space.

“We need to verify that you are who you say you are. If the BVN provided does not match your identity, it means it is not yours.

“As an institution, we try to protect investors and protect ourselves too as regulators. We will try to make the process as easy as possible and also as protected as possible,” he said.

Mr Agama noted that the issue of unclaimed dividends was very important to SEC because it affected investor’s return on investment.

He advised investors whose shareholding accounts appeared on the list of non-mandated accounts hosted on the commission’s website to use the new self-service portal by clicking on the “NIBSS Self Service” link.

The director-general assured that SEC was at the forefront of making sure that unclaimed dividends were reduced and ultimately completely eradicated.

“We will continue to do our best at SEC and employ technology, education, persuasion, and every means that will make people understand the processes around claiming dividends, identification and getting their dividends back.

“For us, any effort to reduce these unclaimed dividends will be a positive one for us,” the SEC director-general added.

Unclaimed dividends are dividends that have not been paid to investors.

SEC had launched a revamped e-Dividend Mandate Management System (e-DMMS) portal as part of efforts to curb the increase in unclaimed dividends and generally improve investor experience in the Nigerian capital market.

The revamped e-DMMS portal introduces a self-service interface that allows investors to apply to mandate their accounts for e-dividend virtually without having to visit a registrar or a bank.

(NAN)