SEC to protect investors against high charges

The Acting Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Uduk has expressed the commitment of the Commission to protect investors from high charges in the capital market.

Making this disclosure in a statement, Uduk stated that the decision is a move to bring down the capital market charges in order to ensure that investors do not bear unnecessary costs on their transactions.

The SEC Acting DG was also quoted to have said that SEC’s determination was to ensure that the investors in the Nigerian capital market were adequately protected in all transactions.

According to Uduk, as far as the capital market is concerned, the responsibility of SEC is to ensure that investors are not shortchanged in any transactions in the market. She, therefore, urged investors to participate in the market to grow it.

Uduk’s statement read, “We are doing a lot to boost investors’ confidence in our market. But I want to say that both local and foreign investors are very good for the market. For instance, the foreign investors, because they trade their shares all the time, it leads to price discovery as against the local investors that just take a long-term view on their investments.”

It is important to understand that investors’ fears can be of two folds. Firstly, they could be afraid because they feel that capital market operators would mismanage their investments. Secondly, they might be looking at the volatility of the market that makes investors skeptical.

For the first scenario, SEC has put several initiatives in place to boost investors’ confidence. For the second scenario, SEC has since been encouraging investors to take ownership of their investments.

“We have the E-Dividend mandate system, the Direct Cash Settlement as well as multiple subscriptions in place. More so, we encourage investors to take ownership of their investments. They have to be able to monitor their investments, attend Annual General Meetings as well as read the annual reports sent out to them,” Uduk added.