SEC Announces Special Identification For Capital Market Participants

In a bid to contain issues of fraud in the capital market as well as reduce the quantum of unclaimed dividends, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said it will give unique identities to capital market participants

Director-general of SEC Lamido Yuguda  said the aim is to manage identities of participants in the capital market.A statement that was issued by the commission said Yuguda made the disclosure at a recent meeting with the Management of Nigeria Data Protection Bureau in Abuja.

Yuguda said the identity management project is already on-going in the capital market, adding that it is designed to ensure that every participant within the capital market has a unique identifier that will be given to them so all capital market transactions will be secured and done on a Straight Through Processing basis, leaving very little human intervention in the processing of data.

The director-general said commission decided to engage relevant stakeholders in a bid to resolve issues of identity management to tackle the problem of unclaimed dividends.

He said the commission was currently engaging stakeholders to harmonise various database of investors and facilitate data accuracy in the market as well as increasing investors’ education to stem the trend.

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“This is an institution that is going to be a strong partner to your bureau in the discharge of your functions, to ensure there is data integrity, data security and all agencies and capital market operators do comply with the NDPR and as far as the Commission is concerned, at the moment, we have an IT transformation project underway that seeks to strengthen our data protection within the commission, the capital market, as well as our entire IT environment so it will be up to speed in terms of modernity, efficiency and protection of the database of the commission and the capital market.

“The bureau and the commission can collaborate to ensure that institutions under my supervision should comply with NDPR as we have a lot of leverage over the institutions that work in the capital market so, we can put more emphasis on compliance in our interaction,” the statement said.

There is a huge gap and big capacity for the agency and the agency will need more people and resources. The world is moving towards an online world which means that data is going to be given and stored somewhere and it can be compromised.

Yuguda said his commissioner will give participants maximum support to ensure their success.

In his response, National commissioner for Data Protection Bureau (DPB) Dr Vincent Olatunji there is a need to ensure personal data that are given are safeguarded and adequately protected and processed within adequate regulations in the country and internationally

He said. “The whole world is a global village, and we are constantly interacting over various issues. The sector had the highest contribution to our GDP last year and that speaks volumes. Over 104 million Nigerians go on the internet daily and now we are looking at digitising everything.

“We are committed to ensuring the protection of the data of Nigerians and to ensure we have globally competitive businesses as most countries will not want to go into business with you if you do not have your data protection and a supervising authority in place,” he said.