Corporate Actions Data Delivery
Delivery Mechanisms
Solutions can be on premise or hosted or a mix of both.
Corporate actions data can be delivered through one or more of: flat files; pipe delimited files (using pipes to separate values); CSV files (comma separated values); tab delimited files (separated by tabs); SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) files; XML (Extensible Markup Language) files; MQ (message queue) messaging files, and API (Application Programming Interface).
Delivery frequency can be batches at regular scheduled intervals - or more ad hoc on demand approaches.
Data Formats and Standards
Information may need to meet ISO 15022, an ISO standard for securities messaging in transactions between financial institutions. There can be standard and proprietary versions of ISO 15022.
ISO 20022 is also being adopted since March 2023, with richer data and structuring to comply with sanctions and AML.
Central Securities Depositaries (CSDs) may have their own standards.
The US SEC regulations require financial reporting to use XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). Corporate action reporting can also use XBRL. The XBRL organisation works with other groups such as DTCC and SWIFT to develop standards.
These standards also need to be mapped onto security identifiers such as CUSIP, ISIN and SEDOL for some users.
Though there are big ambitions for standardisation, at the same time some users prefer bespoke smart forms to customise corporate actions to their own end uses. The Australian Stock Exchange uses “smart forms”, which are customisable digital documents that can be populate and validate data, set data limits, and apply other automatic processes and controls. The forms are adapted to different corporate actions while maintaining STP, and consistency with ISO 20022.
Integration With Trading Platforms
Corporate actions data and events needs to be integrated with trading platforms, so that fund managers can seamlessly implement decisions about rebalancing indices and benchmarks, buying and selling securities, reinvesting income from them, changing names and tickers, and so on. The ULTUMUS corporate actions service is integrated with the IRONHIDE trading platform.
The API also integrates with the existing ULTUMUS trader interface, Ironhide, a graphical user interface (GUI), which gives clients a URL to view Index/ETF composition data, including rebalances and changes, which can be caused by corporate actions and/or other factors. Ironhide offers extensive reference and benchmark data for indices and ETFs, including constituents, numbers of shares, prices, sector codes and exchange codes.
It can be sliced and diced by country, sector, and generates calculation output showing amounts that need to be bought and sold for rebalances, corporate actions and other events.
Integration with CSDs and Custodians
Tagging, flagging and identifiers also need to be coordinated with the central securities depositaries and custodians who hold securities.
