Corporate Actions special report

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The Big Picture

Considering rules and standards that have an impact on corporate actions processing, it appears that BCBS 239 is having a greater effect than the legal entity identifier (LEI) or ISO messaging formats, according to experts in the field who took part in the Virtual Roundtable featured in this report.

BCBS 239 sets out principles for risk data aggregation, as Will Dolan, head of Fidelity ActionsXchange, observes. Corporate actions have to be included in risk considerations, notes Arno Wilhelm of SIX Financial Information, adding that corporate actions should be managed more at the entity level, rather than the instrument level.

This is surprising, since the Roundtable panelists, overall, do not regard the LEI as being that critical for corporate actions. In their view, other identifiers-such as ISIN/SEDOL/CUSIP-are more important, as SEB's Christine Strandberg points out. In the messaging realm, ISO 20022 is now well underway, but its implementation will be a multi-year process. Whatever effects were going to be felt have already been determined.

If anything, the overall message you will find in this report is that corporate actions should be thought of on a macro, overarching level, with less concern for the devilish details. Firms still have to get those details right, but the risk management perspective seems to be the way that industry experts suggest looking at corporate actions now.

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