Custodian banks play an important role in the AGM organisation process. The translation of the Shareholder Rights Directive into national law has resulted in a series of changes requiring a reorganisation of AGMs. OeKB supports communications between the issuer and the custodian banks through state-of-the-art IT solutions and the use of new SWIFT standards.
Assistance in handling registrations
Confirmation of holdings and shareholder registrations in accordance with applicable legal provisions via
Matching with registrations
Registrations to the AGM are matched with the certificates of deposit. If there is no separate registration (and no separate registration was required by the issuer according to the invitation) the certificate of deposit serves as the registration to the physical AGM.
New SWIFT standard
The ISO 20022 standard “Proxy Voting”, which was specifically developed by SWIFT to meet the new requirements, offers a technically-matured solution which ensures easy handling of all process steps. With this new standard, AGM-relevant information about the invitation, certificates of deposit, voting rights proxies, and voting instructions can be forwarded at minimal effort. This reduces the risk inherent in such processes and makes them resource-conserving and more convenient for the custodian bank.
Advantages for custodian banks
- Implementation of the Shareholder Rights Directive in accordance with legal provisions
- Easy and IT-based generation of voting instructions for proxy voting
- Option of resource-friendly proxy voting through electronic tele-voting if offered by the issuer
- Time-saving transmission of certificates of deposit to issuers
- Paperless IT solution with low staff requirements
- Cost-savings through targeted outsourcing
- Process simplification through connection to the bank’s own systems according to needs and uniform communication via SWIFT and banking interface
- Risk minimisation through the avoidance of manual process steps