E-Dividend: Banks Dare SEC, Charge Investors N3,150 Verification Fee

Commercial banks in the country are flouting the directive of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the e-dividend iportal nitiative. While SEC directed that registration on the portal will be free for investors in the first 90 days, investigations reveal that some banks are charging investors as high as N3,150 to register on the portal. Financial Vanguard investigations reveal that some banks as at Friday, charged investors as high as N3,150 for verification and stamp on mandate form.

For example, Ecobank charges N3,150; First Bank N1,050; Zenith charges N1,000 while UBA and Union Bank charge no fee. The Director General of SEC, Mounir Gwarzo who expressed satisfaction with the level of success recorded so far with the enlightenment programme boost awareness about the portal. He urged investors to take advantage of the service and visit their registrars or banks to register.

“We have all agreed that this is the way to go. It is now left for the investors to go and register. We have agreed with all the stakeholders that for the first 90 days the registration is going to be free. After 90 days, anyone that wants to register will pay N100” “Once the e-dividend is in place, the issue of stale warrant will be of the past, the issue of travelling from one place to another to deposit the warrant will be a thing of the past; the issue of change of address will also be eliminated.

“The era of proceeds not being remitted for shares sold will be a thing of the past. The e-dividend platform with the use of BVN is what will give us that. Once we register for e-dividend, we will also benefit from the Direct Cash Settlement. Another advantage of the e-dividend is that it will provide a very robust KYC to the operator.

“It is because of lack of KYC that we find a lot of infractions in this market. With the BVN platform which the e-dividend is leveraging on, the KYC will now be very robust. People will not be able to use all sorts of identifications to claim what does not belong to them” “The era of stale dividend and huge unclaimed dividend in the market will be a thing of the past with the launch of e-dividend payment platform. The commission will conduct intensive training for bankers and registrars on the usage of the new portal,” Gwarzo stated.

E-dividend refers to the payment of cash dividend into a shareholder’s nominated bank through a direct credit rather than issuing a cheque or warrant. The e-dividend portal which was launched by SEC on July 29 last year has been designed for the use of banks and registrars to digitise the manual process of verification of shareholders’ account details and ensure efficiency in the enrolment process for e-dividend payment.