SEC to improve financial literacy, launches capital market journal

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it was making efforts to boost financial literacy among young people. Mr Mounir Gwarzo, the SEC Director-General, spoke on Thursday at the launching of the Nigerian Journal of Securities Market (NJSM) in Lagos. Gwarzo said that it would improve financial literacy of Nigerians, because poor financial literacy has been identified as one of the factors responsible for the low level of financial inclusion.

The SEC director-general said that launch of the journal was one of the steps being taken by the commission to address the gap. According to him, the commission has focused on several financial literacy initiatives as part of its market development drive. Gwarzo said that efforts were being made to boost financial literacy among young people with school programmes, literacy week and a capital market curriculum. He said that the journal represents another milestone in the endeavour of the SEC to fulfill its capital market literacy master plan.

“The Nigerian Securities Market Journal (NSMJ) is a periodic multi-disciplinary journal that will serve as a platform for disseminating information and research on the Nigerian Capital Market. The journal will publish original evidence-based papers on capital market activities.’’ he said. The SEC director-general said that the journal would revamp capital market information, serve as evidence point and re-establish SEC as the knowledge bank of the capital market. Gwarzo said that the journal would provide an avenue to disseminate critical insights into some of the main problems facing the securities market.

“It will provide an avenue to present and analyse emerging trends and contemporary issues as they affect the Nigerian Securities market,” he said.

Launching the journal, Mr Bismarck Rewane, the Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Ltd., commended SEC on its efforts at financial literacy. Rewane said that it was important for Nigerians to be financially literate given the current economic recession. He expressed optimism that the country would experience early symptoms of recovery by late 2017, urging SEC to sustain its efforts at educating Nigerians on financial issues.