SEC Restates Commitment to Increased Investment in Technology

SEC Restates Commitment to Increased Investment in Technology

Nume Ekeghe

The Acting Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mary Uduk, has reiterated the Commission’s commitment to investing more in technology.

This, she stressed would attract more participants in the capital market.

Uduk, said this during the 19th annual conference of the Risk Managers Association of Nigeria, with the theme, “Economic recovery: Leveraging technology innovation,” held in Lagos recently, where she spoke on the topic: “Deepening Capital Market Activities through Technological Innovation: Opportunities and Challenges.”

Uduk, who was represented by the Head, Risk Management, SEC, Mr. Okey Umeano said, “We have started to spend money to learn how we can use technology to make thing more efficient in the sector and facilitate investment for all those who are interested in investing in the stock market. If our country will compete with other countries in the world, we must put the right regulation in place.”

According to her, fintechs were fast growing, saying there was a need to adapt to the changes that technology had brought into the system.

She said the Commission had created a market-wide fintech committee to form a roadmap that would channel the efforts towards the development of the market.

Furthermore, she said protection of the investors in the market would remain a priority to SEC, no matter how the market sought to make profit.

However, she pointed out that adoption of technology comes with challenges such as skills gap and inadequate capacity.

“Each of these new products is unique and has to be treated as such, and regulators have to be knowledgeable about it,” she said.

Another challenge she mentioned, was that the cost of technology acquisition was high, and maintenance and implementation could be difficult.

On her part, the Chairman, RIMAN, Ms. Folakemi Fatogbe said: “The topic discussed today is a very apt topic for this time because similar oil producing countries like us such as Saudi Arabia and UAE are actually doing a lot in terms of technology to diversify the economy and the view really is that Nigeria would benefit a lot from technological innovation.

“It has been seen as a way of moving countries forward in terms of their economic growth and given our own population demographics where we have significant youth population and the youth population can be energised and galvanised by technology. Technology can also aid economic growth by creating efficiencies and by creating reach.”

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