BY PETER EGWUATU
The Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Limited has cleared and settled shares’ transactions valued at N798 billion in 2010 as against N685.7 billion in year 2009, representing an increase of 16.4 per cent.

Managing Director/CEO, CSCS, Mr. Onyewuchi Asinobi on Monday disclosed this during the review of CSCS performance for 2010 in Lagos, noting that the CSCS has cleared and settled  shares’ transactions worth N7.2 trillion from 1997 to 2010.

According to him, “ for year 2010 the volume of cleared and settled transactions recorded by CSCS stood at 93.3 billion units of shares as against102.8 billion units of shares in year 2009 thereby bringing about a 9.2 per cent decrease in the volume of cleared and settled transactions in the year. From 1997 to December 31, 2010, CSCS has cleared and settled a total of 646 billion units of shares”.

He disclosed that shareholders had reduced their request for share certificates as proof of ownership of shares as most of them have embraced the certificate- less system being canvassed by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

According to him, “ during the year under review, 62 shareholders requested for share certificates as against 109 shareholders in the previous year thereby bringing about a 43.1 per cent decrease in these request for the year under review. Since 1997 to December 31, 2010, only 9,204 shareholders have requested for their share certificates”

Continuing, Asinobi further disclosed that there are over 4.5 million shareholders in the CSCS system going by statistics gathered at the end of 2010 in comparison with over 4.32 million shareholders recorded in 2009. These new statistics nclearly represents an increase of 4.2 per cent in the number of shareholders who maintain accounts with the with the CSCS.

On the use of shares in the CSCS, depository as collateral for loan, he noted, that 437 shareholders used their shareholding in CSCS depository as collateral to obtain loan in year 2010 as against 1,550 shareholders in 2009, representing a decrease of 71.8 per cent. “

More than 15, 643 shareholders have used their shareholding as collateral for loan since inception of CSCS to year- end 2010.

He explained that the reduction in the use of shares as collateral for loan experienced during the year 2010 was due to the margin loan problem encountered by banks.

The CSCS, he said has dematerialized 886,124 share certificates for year 2010 as against 2.0 million share certificates in year 2009 resulting in a decrease of 55.7 per cent.  “From 1997 to 2010, CSCS has thus far dematerialized 13.4 million share certificates. The CSCS provided the platform for a full dematerialised securities market since 1997. The infrastructure has since remained under utilised” he added.

On the issue of Trade Guaranty Fund, Asinobi said that as at December 31,  2010, it stood at N52 million as against N49.58 million in 2009. “ Thus increase in largey as a result of interest income derived from settlement banks involved in the management of the Fund” he added.

In reviewing the market, the CSCS boss noted that a total number of 135,874 deals were cleared in OTC bond market in 2010 as against 132,374 deals in 2009, representing an increase of about 2.64 per cent.