Broadridge-SLIB unveil EU SRD II solution 05 January 2021 France Reporter: Drew Nicol
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Broadridge Financial Solutions and SLIB, a French software vendor in electronic voting and security services, are taking on the challenge of automating the “heavily manual process” of navigating corporate actions with a cross-border proxy voting solution covering European shareholder meetings and built for compliance with the second Shareholder Rights Directive (SRD II).
SRD II went live on 4 September 2020 and is global in its scope, impacting any financial intermediary that holds or services European equities, irrespective of where the intermediary firm is located.
It applies to all types of financial intermediaries, including banks and brokers, wealth managers and central securities depositaries.
Designed specifically for French intermediaries, including the retail sector, the fully automated, end-to-end joint solution will create a straight-through processing connection between Broadridge’s Global Proxy solution SLIB’s electronic voting platform Votaccess which manages in excess of 80 percent of the constituents of the French CAC 40 index’s general meetings.
The partners say their alliance will enable the distribution of meeting agendas for European shareholder meetings, as well as process and count votes from French shareholders in a seamless service, unique to the French market.
The solution is fully integrated into client workflows and will be available ahead of the 2021 proxy season, the first proxy season where SRD II compliance is compulsory, according to Broadridge.
Demi Derem, general manager of Broadridge’s international investor communication solutions, says the collaboration seeks to improve the current investor communications environment that has been “dominated by heavily manual processes” and will help the French market “realise significant efficiencies when it comes to the voting processing across European shareholder meetings, and take the lead when it comes to compliance with SRD II”.
In the retail space, the solution will for the first time allow French intermediaries to offer proactive proxy voting services to shareholders where they can be notified of shareholder meetings for European companies and exercise voting rights seamlessly, the partners say.
“This is a landmark initiative and brings together the leading provider of global proxy solutions in Broadridge, with our unique Votaccess platform, the electronic voting solution leader in the French market,” says SLIB CEO Philippe Cognet. “With deep expertise and robust investor communications governance models with the main banking actors, Broadridge represents an ideal partner to bring this innovative solution to market.”
Broadridge says it has already carried out more than 100 live client implementations of its SRD II solution, with a further 100-plus now underway. These clients, which are based both within and outside of Europe, include both retail and institutional-focused firms, encompassing multiple tier-one banks, brokers and wealth managers.
Among these users is BEC, a Danish technology firm,, and Smith & Williamson Group, a financial and professional services firm in the UK and Ireland, which signed up to the solution last year.
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