Why Unclaimed Dividends is Rising -SEC DG

Mr. Lamido Yuguda, Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has blamed the increased number of unclaimed dividends on investors’ failure to mandate their accounts since payments are being delivered electronically.

Unclaimed dividends are being paid into the Unclaimed Dividends Trust Fund, according to Yuguda, who mentioned this during an interactive session with media.

He did, however, say that any investor who comes forward and mandates his or her account would be reimbursed right away.
According to him, “The reason why the number may be going higher is because a lot of investors have not mandated their accounts.

“Dividends are now distributed electronically, so dividends go directly into the investors account and if everybody mandates their accounts there would be little unclaimed dividends in the system.

SEC has invested a lot of resources and has embarked on a number of programmes on investor education to ensure that people mandate their accounts.

“This process is still open and can be done with the registrars, forms can be obtained from the banks too and it’s a very simple process. We also have on our website a tool that assists the investors to determine any unclaimed dividends that they have”.

The SEC boss encouraged “investors to take advantage of these tools or to directly speak to the complaints section of the SEC and we would guide that person appropriately.

Source: vanguardngr.com