AfDB, SEC Sign $460,000 Capital Market Surveillance Deal

Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) have signed an agreement for a grant worth $460,000 on a market surveillance system project.

This was disclosed in a statement by Mr Lamin Barrow, the Director-General, Nigeria Country Department of the AfDB Group on Monday.

The deal is meant to modernise Nigeria’s capital markets and ensure that it is well positioned to support economic transformation driven by private sector investments.

Mr Barrow said the grant from the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund (CMDTF) – a multi-donor trust fund administered by the African Development Bank-and supported by the Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Cooperation of the Netherlands, will support the acquisition, installation and deployment of a real-time automated securities market surveillance system of the Nigeria capital markets.

According to Barrow, “Today’s ceremony marks yet another important milestone in our partnership and efforts to modernize Nigeria’s capital markets and ensure that it is well positioned to support economic transformation driven by private sector investment.

“The introduction of a surveillance system will enhance oversight over securities trading across all existing and future trading platforms and all tradable securities and products by the SEC. It will therefore preserve securities market integrity, boost investor confidence and enhance financial inclusion, among other expected outcomes.

The AfDB DG said to ensure sound implementation and sustainability, the design of the technical assistance project embeds training activities to strengthen the capacity of users of the securities market surveillance system, and the preparation of relevant operational manuals and workflow processing and document management for the surveillance solution.

In his remarks, the Director General of the SEC, Mr Lamido Yuguda said the SEC is pleased and thankful to AfDB for providing the grant support to execute these very important projects, particularly the project to acquire a surveillance solution.

Yuguda said a market surveillance system is required to aid the regulator in detecting and addressing market abuse as quickly and efficiently as possible and to proactively prevent major infractions. An automated market surveillance tool will enhance the Commission’s role in investor protection, as well as ensure a transparent, fair and orderly market and reduce systemic risk.