By Babajide Komolafe

IN response to the several complaints from Investors Forum over the Electronic Dividend Mandate Management System (e-DMMS) portal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has set up a monitoring team to monitor compliance with the implementation of the initiative.

Among other things, investors had complained that banks visited claimed ignorance of the initiative and non-availability of the portal. Furthermore, Investors Forum had called for massive publicity campaign to create awareness about the eDDMS.

Responding to these issues, Head of Corporate Communication, SEC, Naif Abdulsalam, disclosed to Investors Forum that the Commission has set up a task force to go round bank branches and registrars to monitor compliance with the e-DMMS initiative.

He said the Commission was surprised to hear that banks staff said they are not aware about the portal and that it is yet to be deployed.

He explained that the eDMMS portal has been deployed by the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) and can be access through NIBSS from any bank branch.

He added that on the issue of publicity, the Commission had been running radio jingles across the country in difference languages to sensitise investors about the eDMMS. He said as a result, investors have been registering on the portal, promising that the Commission would issue periodic report on the level of activity on the portal.

He also disclosed to Investors Forum that SEC is going to embark on a road show on the eDMMS in the first week in January and also hold Town Hall meetings with retail investors and shareholder groups in Lagos and Abuja on the various retail investor focused initiatives of SEC.

Commenting on the three months moratorium for free registration on the portal, Naif said that the three months was initially to commence from November 15th, but it was later shifted to December 17. This implies that investors can register free on the eDMMS portal  till March 17th, thereafter registration would cost N100 per registration.

Also last week, Investors Forum was approached by an investor who wanted to know the process for registering on the eDDMS portal.    For this purpose and to complement SEC’s publicity effort, the procedure for registering on the portal is reproduced below.

“All Registrars’ offices/accredited outlets shall be points of upload of completed e-Dividend Mandate forms by investors who may alternatively approach their banker to process their completed e-Dividend Mandate Form(s).

“Every Registrar shall validate investor’s shareholder account number, name, signature and Clearing House Number (CHN). This shall be followed with upload of scanned copy of completed e-Dividend Mandate Form(s) on to the portal for immediate access by the investor’s nominated bank for the verification of his/her bank account details.

Registrars shall exercise caution when validating names generated by the system for the Clearing House Number, Shareholder Account Number and Bank Account Number against the physical form to ensure there is a reasonable level of congruence before the document is accepted and saved on the portal.

“Investors should be educated to complete separate forms for each shareholder account number, as upload of e-Dividend Mandate Forms shall be on the basis of individual shareholder number and company of investment indicated by the investor on the physical e-Dividend Mandate Form.

“The receiving bank may reject the mandate uploaded by Presenting Registrars if the signature on the mandate does not tally with the specimen signature of the account holder in the bank.

“Where banks uploads e-Dividend Mandates to registrars for investor detail validation, such mandates must be confirmed by the Receiving Registrar Authoriser within 72 hours (3 days) of transmission by the Presenting Bank Authorizer.” (For comments, questions and enquiries pls write to[email protected])