EFCC and SEC Collaborate to Stop Illegalities in the Online Market

Yesterday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), assured the public that they would work hard to reduce illegalities in the online market.

This was announced by the acting director general of the SEC, Dr. Emomotimi, during a meeting with a team from the EFCC in Abuja, which Mr. Ola Olukoyede, the executive chairman, led.

Agama claims that the SEC, the top regulator of the capital markets, is ready to collaborate with the EFCC to achieve the national objective of preventing criminal activity from thriving.

He said, "It is a great pleasure to receive you here today. This is a testament to our relationship and the value you place on the SEC and the best interest of Nigeria. This will be the beginning of greater things to come. We should strengthen our existing Memorandum of Understanding and ensure it is more effective in dealing with current issues.

"We believe this form of cooperation is in the best interest of Nigerians. Only last week, we met the fintech community, and we made it clear to them that the SEC will not condone illegal trading on any platform, especially P2P. it's a dangerous trend and we cannot allow it to continue. This collaboration is necessary to get out of this forex crisis."

He revealed that the commission is building a regulatory centre where it can upload requests and have other regulators or sister agencies react immediately, reducing instances of delay.

He added, "We plan to create an economic, regulatory hub where we can upload requests and other regulators can respond immediately. Time to market is very important in our work, and we must have information and responses on time.

"We will do all we need to do to ensure our markets are free from manipulations. We will enforce where necessary to send a strong message that it is no longer business as usual.

"We are examining our virtual regulations to cover all areas and are open to reviews to create a better document and a well-regulated market. We are striving to close all the gaps, and this cooperation will enable us to block every gap in our bid to regulate the virtual space and comfort Nigerians."

Earlier in his speech, Olukoyede stated that forex crises and malpractices are bad for any economy, and virtual traders' involvement in undermining the Nigerian economy through their operations needs to be investigated.

He said that the SEC is essential to regulatory compliance and that the Commission is prepared to use its authority to boost the economy. 

"We are enforcers and not regulators, so we need the SEC to ensure people play by the rules. We have done a lot in discouraging people from forex malpractices.

"The mandate of the EFCC is to enforce all economic and financial crimes in Nigeria, and this is a herculean task, which is why we are collaborating with other relevant government agencies. We need to ensure people play by the rules and ensure compliance to attract Foreign Direct Investments to our economy," he said.

Back Story

On Tuesday, Economic Financial Crimes Commission members continued raids on Bureau De Change operators, capturing merchants in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, and Port Harcourt.

This happened as the value of the naira declined against the US dollar on both the official and black market foreign exchange markets.

The EFCC's recent raids followed renewed efforts by the Federal Government to combat the naira's recent fall against the greenback.

According to reports, the government has accused cryptocurrency traders of speculating against the naira, citing the activities of currency speculators in the forex and digital cryptocurrency markets as the reason for the increased pressure on the national currency.