Intensifies Investor Education in South-South/East Zone

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), apex regulator of the Nigerian capital market, has constituted a 10- man Investor Education Faculty (IEF) that is tasked with formulating and executing strategies which will expand financial inclusion as well as raise the profile of capital market awareness and participation in the two geopolitical zones.

The IEF recently kicked off its work with an inaugural meeting held at the SEC’s Port Harcourt Zonal Office, which exercises the commission’s dual mandate of regulatory oversight and market development in the 11 states that make up the South – East and South – South geopolitical zones.

The faculty is multidisciplinary, comprising people with diverse competencies in finance, SEC personnel, a representative of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), and members drawn from capital market operator institutions such as FBN Quest Limited, United Capital Plc, Investment One Financial Services Limited, Cowry Securities Limited, Vicmem Investment Services Limited and Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited.

This pooling of resource persons with cross – cutting competencies is under the leadership of Head of the SEC’s Port Harcourt Zonal Office, Mr. Obi Adindu. According to Adindu, the faculty is tasked specifically with furthering financial inclusion by bringing more people and entities in the two geopolitical zones in contact with financial and capital market information; raising the profile / percentage contribution of the two geopolitical zones in the volume and value of formal financial / capital market transactions; enhancing the performance of MSMEs by enabling them with necessary financial information; and building stronger immediate and futuristic equity for the financial markets in the market segment.

“The faculty is additionally tasked to generate simple, easy – to – digest expositions on such themes as personal financial planning; the financial life cycle; investing in the Nigerian capital market through collective investment schemes and opportunities in the Nigerian capital market. The faculty will disseminate the same resource materials to target audiences in the geopolitical zones during various interactive forums to be created for the purpose,” Adindu said.

He explained that already, the inaugural meeting of the faculty has delineated specific segments out of the South – East and South – South population universe in order to target specialised financial and capital market information at particular audiences.

Some of the identified population segments include labour unions / occupational groups, organised private sector – chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture, micro, small and medium enterprises, informal sector – comprising artisans, market and trade associations, military and paramilitary organisations, town unions and even students of secondary and tertiary institutions among others.