Broadridge Signs MOU with Taiwanese Depositary

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc, a provider of technology-driven solutions for financial firms and corporate issuers globally, has reached an agreement with the Taiwanese central depository, Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC), to establish direct links with the TDCC’s new electronic voting system for Taiwanese shareholder meetings, StockVote.

For listed companies that elect to use the StockVote system, direct voting into the system by Broadridge will significantly enhance the level of straight-through processing (STP) in the process, greatly improving voting deadlines for overseas investors and helping to eliminate multiple manual processes undertaken by local sub-custodian banks supporting Broadridge’s clients in the market today.

StockVote was developed by TDCC to take advantage of recent regulatory changes in Taiwan that allow electronic voting, and the system has been used successfully by local investors for several years. By working with TDCC, Broadridge will bring the benefits of StockVote to foreign shareholders voting in Taiwan through Broadridge’s global proxy service for global custodians and their institutional investor clients. Currently, voting in Taiwan is predominately handled manually by local banks, often including mandatory meeting attendance. With the co-operation of the sub-custodians and global custodians, Broadridge will send overseas voting directly to StockVote through secure electronic means, thereby eliminating the manual handling of paper voting and meeting attendance by the local banks for participating Taiwanese issuers.  

Sherman Lin, president of TDCC, said: “We have listened to the concerns of investors about shareholder voting in Taiwan, and have worked with our regulators to update local regulations to enable improvements to the process. We are pleased that the necessary regulatory changes are for the most part now complete, and local investors have been able to benefit from the improved process.  We see working with Broadridge to bring these benefits to overseas investors as a critical next step to further improving corporate governance in Taiwan.”