By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says its compliance tool for capital market operators (CMOs) resulted to an improved level of compliance with filing of prudential returns rising to 96 per cent in the Nigerian capital market for the year 2022.
Its Director General, Lamido Yuguda, stated this in a New Year Message in Abuja on Wednesday.
Whilst stating that the Commission has been fighting a serious war against ponzi schemes and market fraud, Yuguda noted that the SEC continued to employ its compliance tool to ensure that only fit and proper capital market operators (CMOs) practice in the market in the year under review.
According to him, this resulted to an improved level of compliance with filing of prudential returns rising to 96 per cent in 2022 compared with 81 per cent recorded in 2021.
He stated that the persistent proliferation of operators running illegal investment schemes in the country has continued to give the commission sleepless nights as this is a major concern to the capital market.
Yuguda said that last year alone, the Commission sealed off the offices of four such illegal operators that had defrauded innocent citizens of billions of naira and assured the investing public that the commission will continue its enforcement actions to ensure that such illegal entities are not allowed to operate.
The DG expressed confidence that as the results of the various initiatives the Commission is implementing begins to gradually manifest in 2023, the Commission and indeed the Capital Market will witness uncommon development in securities issuance businesses especially as it affects digital assets, commodities trading ecosystem, custodianship of assets, and Fintech among others.
On some of the achievements of the Commission in 2022, Yuguda disclosed that on the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), in order to comply with the requirements of both the GIABA Mutual Evaluation Report(MER) Follow-Up Process and the FATF International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) requirements and to avoid Nigeria being placed on the FATF public grey list at the Plenary after the deadline in October, 2022, the Commission approved the Rules and Regulations of the Virtual Asset Service providers b. Amendments of the sector specific regulations to repeal the 2013 SEC AML/CFT Regulations and enactment of the 2022 AML/CFT Regulations.
On Fintech, Yuguda stated that the commission will pursue various initiatives, including sensitization programmes on crowdfunding adding that to further strengthen and encourage developments in the Fintech space, the Commission resuscitated the Regulatory Incubation program during 2022.
“With the implementation of the Revised Capital Market Master Plan, the Market will also witness renewed confidence expected to attract fresh investments from domestic and foreign investors.
Although 2023 is an election year and market activities may typically slow down before and during the general elections, we are hopeful that the improved awareness and positive electioneering campaigns will lead to peaceful elections and a quick return to the pre-election levels of investment activities”, he said.