Corporate actions reform in the Russian market is aimed at simplifying the participation process in corporate events and reducing costs by eliminating the paper document workflow. By May, the national settlement depository plans to switch on usage of electronic means of communication for general meeting voting.

Information on general meetings will be electronically cascaded through the chain of corporate actions processing participants. Further steps of corporate action reform are discussed on the corporate actions development committee supervised by the depository managing board and chaired by the head of Global Securi ties Services Russia, UniCredit, Alexander Nazarov.

The depository has launched the electronic matching of OTC trades, allowing clients to receive information on the most relevant potential instructions among all those sent by the counterparties in real time.

Last year was extremely challenging for custodians in Russia since they became became full tax agents for income derived from Russian securities, explains Evgenia Klimova, head of GSS Russia at Raiffeisen Bank International.

Following certain regulatory amendments and clarifications incorporated into the Securities Market Law and ancillary regulations with regard to interpretation of a foreign nominee concept, more foreign institutions acting in the interest of third parties took the decision to segregate proprietary and clients’ positions by transferring the latter to foreign nominee custody accounts, says Mikhail Bratanov, head of Societe Generale Securities Services in Russia.