DTCC Reaches 100 Million Mark for ISO 20022 Messages on Corporate Actions

Automation continues to grow for corporate actions announcements, as evidenced by the fact that the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) broke the 100 million mark for ISO 20022 messages distributed as of June.

Since November 2011, DTCC, through its subsidiary The Depository Trust Company (DTC), has used the ISO 20022 standard for sending messages on corporate actions.

Using the ISO 20022 standard provides “several benefits,” said Robert Epstein, DTCC vice president, asset services. “It allows for a greater amount of data in fielded format and [less reliance] on manual processing.”

The automation minimizes human error, making corporate actions announcement messages less risky.

“It also improves straight-through processing rates,” said Epstein.

DTCC has introduced automation through a stepped approach. After starting with just announcements in 2011, DTCC piloted a program in September 2012, using ISO 20022 messages to cover the entire lifecycle for distribution events, which the company began systematically testing in February 2013.

“The next milestone for the corporate actions transformation will come in the fourth quarter of 2013 when we begin testing in-bound instruction messages from clients,” said Epstein. “This is a major development since it will be the first time clients will be able to submit their instructions for distributions events to DTCC in an automated fashion. Currently, these instructions are communicated to DTCC manually through terminal and browser interfaces. This represents a major gain in efficiency and risk reduction.”