Broadridge and Taiwanese central depository Taiwan Depositary & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) have signed a memorandum of understanding.
The agreement is to establish direct links with the TDCC’s new electronic voting system for Taiwanese shareholder meetings, StockVote.
For companies that elect to use the StockVote system, direct voting into the system by Broadridge will enhance the level of straight-through processing and will improve voting deadlines for overseas investors, eliminating multiple manual processes undertaken by local sub-custodian banks.
StockVote was designed to incorporate recent regulatory change in Taiwan and local investors have used the system successfully.
Working with sub-custodians and global custodians, Broadridge will send overseas voting directly to StockVote through secure electronic means that will benefit foreign proxy voters.
Sherman Lin, president of the TDCC, said: “We have listened to the concerns of investors about shareholder voting in Taiwan, and have worked with our regulators to update local regulations to enable improvements to the process.”
“We see working with Broadridge to bring these benefits to overseas investors as a critical next step to further improving corporate governance in Taiwan.”
Demi Derem, general manager of Broadridge’s global proxy service, said: “As interest in cross-border proxy voting and corporate governance has grown in the last few years, Broadridge has worked with local parties wherever possible to improve the local processes and the ability of our clients to vote.”
“Taiwan has required our clients to deploy manual processes for many years given the regulatory environment and market practices. The development of StockVote and the possibilities raised by our cooperation with them promise to bring significant benefits to our overseas clients in their efforts to support improved corporate governance globally.”
