How to redeem your unclaimed dividends in Nigeria

The following steps would be quite helpful in redeeming your unclaimed dividends that are less than six years old in the pool.

The Finance Act 2020 was recently signed into law by President Buhari and became effective from January 1, 2021.

By Johnson Uche

According to the provisions of the Finance Act 2020, the federal government can borrow from the pool of unclaimed dividends of quoted companies that have remained unclaimed for a period of not less than six years from the date of declaring such dividends.

Nairametrics earlier reported that the members of the House of Representatives had raised alarm over N200billion locked up in the unclaimed dividends pool.

The following steps would be quite helpful in redeeming your unclaimed dividends that are less than six years old in the pool:

Step 1: Check your names using the link – http://sec.gov.ng/non-mandated/ to obtain the list of shares relating to your names from SEC. It will display all the companies you have shares in and the registrars in charge.

Step 2: Take note of the registrar’s name for each of your company’s shares. A registrar is the company that keeps details of your shares/shareholdings.

Step 3: Download and fill your registrar’s form which is usually beside the company’s name on the website.

Step 4: Submit your form to the registrar, with acknowledgement, most times, through your bank.

Quite a number of the companies would require that you visit your bank and get a bankers’ confirmation to be able to initiate e-dividend form for you. With e-dividend in place, your dividends can be automatically credited to your designated bank account.

Why this matters

• Over N200billion is estimated to be trapped in the pool of unclaimed dividends and this is quite huge.
• It is clear that as soon as the provision is fully applied and implemented, no shareholder will be able to claim their unclaimed dividends of at least six years old in the pool, in the short/medium term, as the funds would have been transferred to CBN under Unclaimed Funds Trust Fund to be borrowed by the federal government.