CSCS to achieve 100% dematerialisation by Q3 2016

The Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc has disclosed that 98.4 per cent of shares quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange are now available in an electronic format in CSCS depository leaving only 1.6 per cent of share certificates still in physical certificate form.

This disclosure was made by Mr Joe Mekiliuwa, General Manager, Operations at CSCS, during an interactive session with the capital market stakeholders in Lagos.

Mekiliuwa said that CSCS was working assiduously with Registrars to ensure that full dematerialisation is achieved before the end of quarter three.

According to him “efforts are geared towards assisting the relevant Registrars to ensure that the remaining 1.6 per cent, although seemingly infinitesimal, is firmly attended to so as to achieve 100 per cent success rate before the end of quarter three (Q3).”

In order to address various problems associated with share certificates such as delay in issuance, verification, loss, theft, forgeries amongst others, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in partnership with other stakeholders, resolved to eliminate these problems by opting for the full dematerialization of share certificates.

Full dematerialisation is the complete elimination of existing physical share certificates in the Nigerian capital market and putting to an end the issuance of new share certificates.

The Registrars of companies, who are involved in the implementation process, are required by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to turn in the registers of all companies they manage to CSCS Depository within a given period of time.