The National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia’s central securities depository, reports that the first corporate actions using new procedures and technology mandated by Russian law have taken place.

The new procedures, which came into effect on 1 July, are designed to standardise and centralise corporate actions by requiring all meetings of security holders on the Russian market to be held in a centralized manner via designated record-keeping institutions like the CSD.

So far, ten shareholder and five bond holder meetings have been held, according to the NSD, with no technical failures or missed implementation deadlines occurring throughout the process.

In addition, the newly enacted law requires all issuers to submit information related to exercising security rights to the depository in a single, standardised format, and to provide participants with the option of using e-proxy voting technology.

The success of these initiatives reflects market participants’ readiness for legal and technological innovations according to the NSD, and appears to validate the time spent by the depository readying the market for these changes.

Since 2015 the NSD has held special tests with market participants in order to check technological readiness, work on interactions, and tune up market participants’ internal procedures and systems in preparation for the new procedures.