By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday directed all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria to equip all its branches to treat, validate, scan and upload e-Dividend mandate forms presented to them.
The circular with reference number BPS/DIR/GEN/05/009 dated September 14, 2015 and signed by Dipo Fatokun, director, banking and payments system department of the CBN said the directive is with immediate effect.
“It is mandatory for every Deposit Money Bank to equip all its branches to treat (validate, scan and upload) e-Dividend mandate form presented to them. This Circular is with immediate effect,’ the CBN affirmed.
The CBN and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in collaboration with relevant stakeholders have leveraged the NIBSS Document Management System to develop a common portal for uploading completed e-Dividend Mandate Forms, detailing relevant bank account and shareholder/investor information.
“This resulted from the observation that the current process of enrolment for e-Dividend payment is cumbersome and has contributed to low adoption of the e-Dividend scheme,” the CBN added.
The portal launched by SEC on July 29, 2015, has been designed for the use of Banks and Registrar’s, to digitize the manual process of verification of shareholders, account details and ensure efficiency in the enrolment process for e-Dividend payment. Also, NIBSS has conducted necessary user training for the nominees of the Banks and Registrars.
The new portal would ensure that all Registrar’s outlet and Nigerian Banks’ branches are points of upload of completed e-Dividend mandate forms. Investors may approach either a Bank branch or a Registrar’s office to process the e-Dividend mandate.
According to the apex bank, where the investor approaches the Registrar, the latter will validate investor’s shareholder account number, name and Clearing House Number (CHN) and upload the scanned copy of the mandate form onto the portal for immediate access by the investor’s chosen Bank.
The Bank will validate investor’s Bank account details and Bank Verification Number (BVN) and approve or reject the mandate online.
On the contrary, if the investor approaches the bank, the bank will validate bank account details and Bank Verification Number (BVN) of the investor and upload a scanned copy of the form onto the portal for immediate access by the investor’s chosen Registrar.
The Registrar then validates investor’s shareholder account number, name and CHN and approves or rejects the mandate online.
The CBN says NIBSS is responsible for the creation of the portal administrators for Bank and Registrars.
Also, the apex bank affirmed that the administrators so created would therefore create and manage authorised users in their respective offices.
