IMD & IRD Awards 2022: Best corporate actions data initiative—SIX

OVERVIEW

For more than nine decades, Switzerland’s SIX has provided financial data and services on a global scale. Its activities in the corporate actions space date back more than 25 years and it has enjoyed success and plaudits along the way. Fast forward to 2022 and SIX continues to upgrade and improve its corporate actions offering and help its clients overcome the challenges of operating in increasingly complex and volatile financial markets. 

THE SOLUTION

SIX’s Global Corporate Actions is a multi-faceted solution providing transparent, accurate and real-time corporate actions data that allows for maximum automation of front- and back-office operations. In 2021, it processed over 10 million corporate events, an 8% increase on 2020.

Monitoring over 34 million instruments and tapping into over 1,800 primary data sources covering more than 70 types of corporate actions, Global Corporate Actions is designed to help firms manage risk. To ensure data accuracy, SIX has implemented constant checks across the collection, processing and distribution chain, before making the data available via various platforms, such as its flagship Valordata Feed (VDF), SIX Flex or cloud-based solutions. All reference data, pricing information and corporate actions data is provided in customizable or industry-standard formats, such as ISO 15022 and MT564, to allow for both client customization and ease of straight-through processing. 

Enhancements to Global Corporate Actions over the last year include the addition of improved quality checks and processes, featuring artificial intelligence tools, plus a new sandbox to develop derivative data and analytics out of SIX’s historic corporate actions data. 

Today, over 50 partners work with SIX for data delivery and streamlined distribution of aggregated corporate actions data into technology and banking software suites. SIX also works with portfolio risk and modeling tools and provides customers with corporate actions data in their platforms, helping them to reduce the risk and complexity of fund administration and portfolio valuation.

WHAT’S TO COME

Key plans for Global Corporate Actions include making more regulatory data available, as well as integrating more environmental, social and governance (ESG) data as this becomes a growing priority for clients. 

WHY THEY WON

Zurich-based SIX wins the category for the best corporate actions data initiative in this year’s awards on the back of the enhancements it introduced to its CA service over the last 12 months. These include improving data quality checks and processes by way of artificial intelligence tools, and launching what the firm describes as a “sandbox” allowing the development of derivative data and analytics from its historical corporate actions data.