SEC reiterates commitment to market digitalisation

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The Securities and Exchange Commission has stated that it will continue to collaborate with various market stakeholders to support impactful digitalisation of the capital market.

The assurance was given by Director General of the SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda during an interaction session.

Mr. Yuguda said the demographics of the capital market currently is greying, adding that it is one of the things the Commission is tackling with the Revised Capital Market Master Plan.

According to him, “We are encouraging Capital Market operators to develop technology. The youths do not want to come in and start filling five page forms because they want to access the market; they want to pick their phones and make their investments.

“For example, our keen support of the innovation by the Issuing House to the MTN IPO in 2022, Chapel Hill Advisory, further promoted the benefits of electronic-IPO (e-IPO), which made it possible for over 100,000 new accounts to be opened on the CSCS, most of which belong to youths and women – key subsets of our demography which is considered critical to sustainable growth.

“That is why we are improving our Know Your Customers; we are improving so many things to make it easier for them. That is why we are introducing these Fintechs. We are allowing these Fintechs to come because we see Fintech as an important gateway for youths to enter the market. We are conscious of that and we are working towards it.”

Mr. Yuguda said that the youths must understand that the capital market is a viable platform for wealth creation assuring them that the SEC and the market is working on how best to serve them.

“We are striving to improve the way we deliver our products, to improve market efficiency and to make the market attractive to them. Most importantly, we are doing all we can to ensure that investors are adequately protected in the market and that they are able to get the benefits of their investments,” he further stated.

As part of the digital transformation, the SEC DG disclosed that last year, the Commission signed an MoU with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to enable the SEC have a surveillance system.

“This surveillance system is a system that allows the SEC, the regulator as a watchdog, to truly see transactions in the market live as they are happening, just to make sure that no market manipulation is happening.

“Right now, we tried to get this information but basically it’s with a lag but with the system that we are getting, it’s real time. This will help this market; this will help the operators themselves. The regulator has their eyes on the market then people who are tempted to do any market manipulation will think twice before they do that. That is really healthier for the market,” he stated.

Mr. Yuguda emphasised that when capital markets are developed, the entire engine of savings and investments and the allocation of resources would have the highest expected returns.

“It is actually made easy and if you do that, you will create more jobs in the economy, more revenues for the government. Life will be made easier for the investors and because of that you will have a lot of interested parties that actually want to put in their own money to help the capital market to develop”, Mr. Yuguda added.

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