By WILLIAM JIMOH

INVESTORS SPEAK

Rev. Samuel Olayemi, a stockbroker.
Electronic dividend is okay in as much as it is done in an ideal way. It helps investors to get their dividends through electronic means. That is to say that they can access their dividends using their bank accounts which they must have given to the registrar.

But the problem I am having with E-dividend is that, the level of education in this country is very low. There are many of the investors that don’t have any bank account while many are living in the villages where they are not having access to banking services. So, for people in that category, it is not something that they can be encouraged to adopt.

For example, many of them while using dividend warrant method of claiming dividend still complain of unclaimed dividend and so many other issues. But tell me how electronic dividend will be able to solve such problems if they don’t have account numbers – the alternative way through which they could have access to their money. It is impossible to operate e-dividend most especially when they are not even having time to visit their brokers.

When the CSCS started, we requested that it should be made automatic and compulsory for everybody. But because it was not registered then, you find out that there were a whole lot of such accounts that were not registered with CSCS, and if they are not registered with CSCS, the probability of capturing them may be very difficult.

Another thing is that, dividend warrant is now made almost like a cash cheque where by you can quickly branch into your bank and claim your money.

It was in the past that you have to sign on your dividend warrant before you can claim it, but now, you don’t have to sign. Most especially for some of the bankers that are understandable enough, they allow you to collect your dividends right there at the counter or save it into your savings account, though it is not all of them. The only thing is that they will not pay you any interest until it has been cleared.

Mr. Martins Adebara, a stock broking firm agent
One of the advantages of electronic dividend is that it reduces the volume of dividends that are lost or claimed by persons other than the clients or shareholders. It also solves the problem of transferring shareholders current information which often resulted in returned and unclaimed dividend if not even lost.

Another benefit is that it saves both the company and shareholders the stress of going around with divided warrant since the client’s account is credited directly. And also some times before these dividends warrants get to the client, it becomes stale since it has a validating period.

So it is the duty of the registrar to credit the account of the shareholders directly and they can also credit the shareholders for e-bonus. So, for e-dividend, you will be alerted by your bank immediately your account is credited, that is if you register for alert. And for your e-bonus, you will be informed by your stockbroker.

Presently, there is no doubt about the fact that the number of people still using dividend warrant are still more than those that are using e-dividend and that is where there is need for more enlightenments because the more the stockholders get informed and use it, the better for everybody involved in that chain of payment.

The issue challenging the level of awareness as regards e-dividend is that many Nigerian investors don’t go to their stockbrokers until when they are having one problem or the other but still, I believe the number is increasing.

Abba Benson a stockbroker
E-dividend is the direct transfer of the amounts you made from you holdings into your bank account.

The advantages are that the issues of dividend that get lost on transit have become a thing of the past. And in a situation whereby a client is living at Ikorodu and he moved to Ikeja without communicating the mobility information to his stockbroker while the company keeps sending the dividend warrant to the wrong place, and may be the people he left behind do not have any knowledge of the holdings, it is either that dividend gets lost or returned to the register. That is one of the reasons why we have huge unclaimed dividends.