January 07, (THEWILL) — The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a public warning cautioning investors against doing business with an entity calling itself Voya Investment Management (VIM), saying the firm is not authorised to operate in Nigeria’s capital market.
In a notice released Wednesday, the SEC said Voya Investment Management has been promoting financial services through its website investments.voya.com claiming to be licensed and supervised by the regulator. According to the SEC, those claims are false and misleading.
The regulator emphasised that VIM is not registered or licensed to offer investment services in Nigerian stocks or other financial instruments and noted that the “certificate of identity verification” the firm displays was neither issued nor endorsed by the SEC.
The SEC further stated that complaints received about VIM’s activities indicate the platform may be operating an illegal investment scheme capable of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public.
Investors are urged to avoid transacting with VIM or its representatives, as doing so would be at their own risk.
To protect themselves, the SEC reminded the public to verify a firm’s registration status through its official portal before making any investment decisions.
This warning joins a series of recent SEC alerts about unregistered online investment platforms that may pose fraud risks to investors.
Ogochukwu Onwaeze
