By Our Correspondent

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigeria’s Central Securities Clearing System Plc (CSCS) Friday Reported a decrease of -50.04 percent (-50.04%) in the number of dematerialised share certificates.

This is contained in a review of the CSCS performance for 2012 and made available to www.investadvocateng.com in Lagos Nigeria.

According to Kyari Bukar, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of the Clearing House of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), in year 2012, CSCS dematerialised 264,886 share certificates compared to 530,140 recorded in year 2011 resulting in a decrease of -50.04%.

“From 1997 to 2012, CSCS has thus far dematerialised 14,164,522 share certificates” Bukar said.

He affirmed that the CSCS provided the platform for a full dematerialised Securities Market since 1997.

Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had said that all share certificates dematerialised on or before January 01, 2013 shall be at no cost to the shareholder, but certificates dematerialised after this date shall be at a cost.

Also in the period under review, the CSCS said 21 shareholders requested for share certificates compared to 31 in year 2011; indicating a -32.26% decrease in these requests for year 2012.

Bukar said since 1997 to December 31, 2012, only 13,387 shareholders have requested for their share certificates.

In the review period, the Clearing House reported it cleared and settled transactions valued at N659 billion compared to N635 billion; indicating an increase of 3.7%.

“It is interesting to note that since 1997 to 2012, CSCS has cleared and settled transactions worth N17 trillion” Bukar said.

In terms of Volume, for year 2012, the CSCS cleared and settled 89,178,066,129 units of shares compared to 89,576,615,611 units in year 2011, showing a 0.4% decrease in the volume of cleared and settled transactions in the year under review.

Bukar affirmed that from 1997 to December 31, 2012, CSCS has cleared and settled a total of 1,649,315,203,271.00 units of shares.

“There are now over 4.9 million shareholders in the CSCS System going by statistics gathered at the end of 2012 in comparison with over 4.88 million shareholders recorded in 2011. These new statistics clearly represent an increase of 1.47% in the number of shareholders who maintain accounts with the CSD” he said.

It was also reported that 168 shareholders used their shareholding in CSCS depository as collateral to obtain loan facilities from Financial Institutions in year 2012; thereby resulting a decrease of 48% in comparison with 2011 figures of 324 shareholders.

The CSCS said in summary, more than 18,916 shareholders have used their shares as collateral for loan since inception till year-end 2012.

Also, the CSCS said the Trade Guaranty Fund, stands at N59.355 million as at December 31 2012 compared to N54.62 million recorded in year 2011 end

It affirmed that the increase in figure was largely as a result of interest income derived from settlement Banks involved in the management of the Fund.

On Bond/Treasury Bills, the CSCS said a total number of 65,319 deals were cleared in OTC (FGN) Bond Market in 2011 compared to 44,822 deals in 2012 representing a decrease of about 46.0%.

While a total number of 44,360 deals were cleared in OTC Treasury Bills Market in 2011 compared to 58,091 deals in 2012; showing an increase of 24.0%.

According to the CSCS in its review, the volume of transactions cleared and settled in OTC Bond Market in 2012 was -7.35 billion units compared to 8.95 billion units in 2011 representing a decrease of 22.0%.

“The volume of transactions cleared and settled in Treasury Bills OTC Market in 2012 was 14.70 billion units compared to 11.16 billion units in 2011 representing an increase of 24.0%” the CSCS said.

Further to this, the Nigeria’s Clearing House said the value of Bond transactions in 2012 wasN7.10 trillion in 2011; indcating a decrease of 13.0% in the review period.

It said the value of Treasury Bills transactions in 2012 wasN13.92 trillion compared to N10.81 trillion in year 2011; showing an increase of about 22.0%.