The SWIFT Annual General Meeting has approved the admission of securities data vendors as a new category of participant.
The move, which aims to entrench SWIFT in the automated messaging of corporate actions and reference data, sees “securities market data providers” defined as “those responsible for collecting and distributing financial information such as corporate action announcements, reference data, securities pricing information, new issue and prospectus documents, shareholders meeting information, trade volume information and index data.”
SWIFT says their admission to the SWIFT community will provide significant potential for greater STP as well as risk and cost reduction.
The SWIFT AGM also modified the by-laws of the organisation to permit future capital increases. By a 90% vote, the members agreed to amend the by-laws permitting SWIFT to increase its capital should the Board ever decide such an increase is in the best interests of the co-operative.
In September 2004, the Board will receive proposals from the Executive to transform the existing advance charges, currently recorded as non-interest bearing deposits, into permanent shareholder equity.
Following the formal agenda, SWIFT Chairman Jaap Kamp and CEO Leonard H. Schrank gave an update from the recent strategic Board offsite and the status of SWIFT 2006. The offsite focused on extending reach to smaller users, new product adjacencies, the importance of business driven standards and understanding the needs of members’ CIOs and COOs. The Board will be working with the Executive to propose solutions for larger members to serve as concentrators to enable smaller users to connect to the SWIFT community. The Board fully endorsed the SWIFT 2006 company strategy.
“We have completely re-built our infrastructure; our market position is growing, our financials are strong; our market initiatives in payments and securities are gaining traction; we will achieve the SWIFT pricing challenge of reducing prices from 2002 to 2006 by 50%,” SWIFT CEO Lenny Schrank told the AGM. “We have quantified the value of SWIFTNet – now we have to deliver.”
The SWIFT Board of Directors elected one new Board Director. Finn Otto Hansen, Head of Department for Clearing and Settlement Strategies, DnB NOR Bank, Norway, will take over the mandate currently held by Ian Ratcliffe of Nordea Bank in Copenhagen, which expires in June 2006.