Capital Market: Nigeria’s Securities & Exchange Commission to partner with RIMAN

Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has expressed its readiness to collaborate with the Risk Management Association of Nigeria (RIMAN) in its quest to make more products available in the capital market as well as deepen the market.

The Director-General of the SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, stated this in a goodwill message at RIMAN’s 20^th International Conference held virtually.

Yuguda disclosed that from the outbreak of the pandemic to the subsequent lock down, the Commission had worked with Capital Market Operators and other industry stakeholders to ensure that the market experiences minimal destruction.

“We have supported and acquired the emergence of various technological driven innovations around market operations and products some of which include Fintech, Digital Assets and Crowdfunding.

“…To support this, we developed a regulatory framework to galvanize these activities while focusing on managing the risk inherent in the products and activities in-line with our mandate of market development and investor protection. 

“In supporting this innovation, we hope to build a better market, attract more investors, and reduce the demographic of the average age that presently invest in our market.

“We also hope to include millions who were excluded from the capital market by making it easier for them to gain access.

“To achieve this, there is a need to collaborate with an organization such as yours and we hereby invite you to contribute in whatever way you can in building the Nigerian Capital Market. We invite you to do more in building the risk management capacity in the capital market, to conduct studies in risk capital market processes and products ad contribute your opinions and recommendations to our exposed rules,” he said.

He said that with increased membership the association has been more feasible in capacity building in the area of risk management and in organizing excellent events such as this adding that “since the SEC’s registration as institutional member of the association, the Commission has endured several benefits that cut across capacity building and the opportunity to share ideas. We will sustain this relationship and continue to contribute in any way we can to help the organization succeed and develop risk management practice in Nigeria”. 

He described the theme for this year’s conference, “Risk Management in a Digital Era” as apt, and could not have been discussed at a more appropriate time as the corona virus pandemic has increased the need for the use of technology in the corporate world assuring that as the regulator of a dynamic capital market the SEC would see this technological transformation as an opportunity to change the way it works and the way it performs its regulatory functions.

Yuguda, therefore, pledged the willingness of the Commission to partner with RIMAN in its activities towards developing risk management practice in Nigeria.