SEC: Proliferation of Illegal Operators Major Concern In Capital Market 

Kayode Tokede

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stated that the persisted proliferation of operators running illegal investment schemes in the country continues to be a major critical concern to the capital market.

Director General of the SEC Mr. Lamido Yuguda who stated this in a New Year Message in Abuja, therefore assured of a renewed onslaught against promoters of such schemes.

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 that the Commission will continue its enforcement actions to ensure that such illegal entities are not allowed to operate.

According to him, “The SEC has been fighting a serious war against Ponzi schemes, we have been alerting people. We have said that investors should only deal with registered operators that have the registration of the Commission, we have their list on the SEC website and we have always said that if you go to an operator or when an operator approaches you, you must confirm that he is a licensed operator with the SEC.”

On some of the achievements of the Commission in the last year, Yuguda disclosed that on 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 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, the DG 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 the year.