My Appointment As SEC DG In Line With Tinubu’s Vision For Crypto-Asets- Agama
The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr. Emomotimi Agama has said that he is a cryptocurrency enthusiast, adding that the capital market is currently studying crypto assets.
The SEC DG made the comment on the sidelines of the Africa Financial Industry Summit (AFIS) 2024 held in Casablanca.
Agama said the SEC has made several efforts to embrace cryptocurrency.
The SEC boss said, “You will first give credit to the president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu. I have been an enthusiast of cryptocurrency. The president deemed it fit to pick me as DG of the SEC.
“We have been in the forefront and that is why we created what we called the regulatory incubation and the accelerated regulatory incubation programme.
“The idea is to be able to bring all of these cryptocurrency exchanges into a box to be able to understand what they are doing, to be able to understand the kind of mix that we have in them and risk associated with them and be able to deal with those risks.”
The SEC boss said the capital market is the barometer of every economy, adding it has been difficult to integrate markets and raise capital within the African continent.
According to the SEC boss, “It is the most necessary thing to developing the African economy.
“Getting listings on the NGX and any other exchange for that matter in Nigeria and Africa is a critical point to deal with and what we are doing at the SEC is trying to provide some clarity to a lot of issues that have bedevilled the market for a long time.
“And besides that, a major concern to deal with is regulation.”
He said the Nigerian Senate has passed the Investment and Securities Act, 2024 bill, which would enhance the contribution of the capital market to the economy.
“That is a major milestone. We are hoping and believing that the House of Representatives will pass it and then the assenting of the bill into law by Mr. President.
“That bill is robust and copious. It has everything that we need to do to drive more listing into the Nigerian capital market and the financial space.
“So, providing clarity, incentives, and guidance is important. We have reduced the time-to-market to 14 days historically, which has done so well and has improved the climate of the market.
“It has also helped the bank recapitalisation exercise from where we have been able to raise at least N1.7tn which is unprecedented. In total, we are doing about N3tn in the last seven months from the Nigerian capital market.”
My Appointment As SEC DG In Line With Tinubu’s Vision For Crypto-Asets- Agama is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
