Russia's National Settlement Depository (NSD) says it has launched a new technology for organizing shareholder meetings that includes informing about shareholder meetings and e-proxy voting. Using international standards will allow it to exchange structured standardised electronic messages with issuers, registrars and depositors and provides an opportunity for the straight-through-processing (STP) of information at all stages of document circulation.
It says the new interaction formats have been developed in accordance with ISO 20022; they are based on international standards for organising and conducting shareholder meetings and take into account the Russian securities market’s specifics. In addition, NSD depositors which use SWIFT will be able to interact on the basis of ISO 15022 (NSD will be responsible for converting messages into ISO 20022/ISO 15022 formats).
Implementation of ISO 20022 will allow NSD to receive structured information about convened shareholder meetings and documents related to the meetings’ agenda items and results from issuers. The information received will be sent automatically in unchanged form to depositors. The new message format will be also used for transmission of electronic documents containing information about securities owners’ votes at shareholder meetings (e-proxy voting).
Eddie Astanin, chairman of the NSD executive board, said: “Corporate actions represent a sphere which needed qualitative changes. All market participants, including foreign investors, agree with this. This sphere’s reform should have a complex effect by improving the market infrastructure, corporate governance quality and the investment attractiveness of Russian assets in general strategically. There are examples of this effect among emerging countries. For instance, in 2011, when e-proxy voting technology was introduced in Turkey, foreign investors’ attendance at shareholder meetings increased more than fivefold.”
