SWIFT Looks to Adopt VSTP for Corporate Actions Automations

Following a successful pilot in which over $104 million was recovered for twenty Citi clients in seven markets, SWIFT was urged by speakers to adopt the new V-STP automated corporate actions processing model as explained by Ross McGill, Director of Marketing at GlobeTax.

Other speakers at the open theatre session, which lasted thirty minutes and is a new feature of Sibos, included Linda Bookheim, a senior manager at SWIFT. Bookheim explained SWIFT's support of the pilot. Debbie Mercer-Miller, Vice President of Global Transaction Services at Citi also spoke and explained how they had implemented V-STP for twenty clients in seven markets.

McGill reported that of the $104 million, $44 million had been recovered in less than 4 weeks against industry averages of 12 to 18 months in the same markets. Mercer-Miller reported that Citi found the results to be very impressive, that the model was implemented very quickly and that overall, they were delighted with the results. Citi is now considering extending the service to other branches in its sub-custody network.

Apart from presenting the results of the new process, McGill noted that the V-STP concept now offers SWIFT members the potential to use the same principle to automate other areas of corporate actions that suffer from manual internal processing. McGill comments "complex areas such as proxy voting and securities class actions could also benefit from this approach. All it needs is for SWIFT to formally adopt V-STP and to actively engage the vendor community to create "value nodes." McGill explains that value nodes are places on the network where SWIFT members can access value added services, such as tax reclamation, using a V-STP model.

Mercer-Miller concurs and, in her presentation, based on the success Citi had experienced thus far, urged SWIFT to adopt the principle of V-STP and make it more widely available. She comments "Lazaro Campos said in the plenary session that he wanted to have SWIFT available as a black box - which just works. As far as we can see, says Mercer-Miller, V-STP does precisely that.

About GlobeTax

GlobeTax is the world's pre-eminent provider of withholding tax services to the financial services community and investors. The firm processes more than a million reclaims a year for all types beneficial owner in all applicable markets. GlobeTax also provides withholding tax based market reference data products covering over 230 markets. SWIFT based products include TRSB, the Tax Reclaim Service Bureau and Market Reference Data Distribution.

Contacts:

SWIFT

Linda Bookheim

+1 (212) 455 1859

Stand E51 at Sibos

Citi

Debbie Mercer-Miller

+1 (212) 816 6861

Stand C16 at Sibos

GlobeTax

Ross McGill

+44 7833 690093