The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has directed shareholders to access the e-dividend portal through its official website.

The Director General of the SEC, Dr. Emomotimi Agama who stated this in an interview recently, emphasised that the process is safe and urged investors to take advantage of the opportunity to mandate their accounts.

Agama said, "if you access that portal from the SEC website, it is genuine. The only other website that is genuine that it can be accessed from is the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System website because that platform was built in conjunction with NIBSS.

"This is very important knowing fully well the cyber security threats that exists in this space. You cannot run away from the fact that a lot of people might be trying to clone the website like they do for other institutions. But my guide is simply go to the SEC website www.sec.gov.ng which is fully protected and access it."

He stated that requesting for Bank Verification Number on the portal is not out of place because for now it is the most authentic retrieval of information in the financial space.

He said, "We need to verify that you are who you say you are. If the BVN provided does not match with your identity, it means it's not yours. As an institution we try to protect the investor and protect us too as regulators. We will try to make it as easy as possible and also as protected as possible too."

Agama said the issue of unclaimed dividends to the SEC is a very important topic because it speaks to the investors themselves.

The SEC Boss said the reason why investors come to the market is to have returns and when the return is not getting to them it becomes a challenge and the SEC is very serious about it.