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Proxymity
During a roundtable discussion Global Custodian hosted in 2019 , one Citi executive spoke about Proxymity in front of a room of their peers to the response of resounding plaudits and consensus over the potential of the initiative . From that moment on , nothing has come as a surprise in the journey of arguably the most widely praised fintech in the securities services industry . Launched out of Citi ’ s innovation lab network and D10XSM programme – an internal strategic growth process that develops and launches new business solutions for Citi – the Proxymity platform enables golden source meeting announcements and agendas to be published directly from issuers to investors who can then send votes in real time to issuers or their agents without the need for manual intervention . They are then able to receive true digital confirmation that their votes have been cast , improving communication and transparency for everyone in the ecosystem . The digital-native platform , built on highly scalable technology , provides full compliance with the latest regulations such as the Shareholder Rights Directive ( SRD II ), while Proxymity highlights how it promotes enhanced environmental , social , and corporate governance ( ESG ) by improving communication between issuers and investors and making it easier for intermediaries to be efficient , timely and compliant when servicing their clients . In April this year , Global Custodian wrote that since its launch two years ago , Proxymity had provided digital access to over 12,000 meetings in over 25 markets worldwide , with that number likely even
ELEVATOR PITCH
Proxymity connects the world ’ s ecosystem of issuers , intermediaries , and investors digitally in real time , bringing unprecedented transparency , efficiency , and accuracy to traditional paper-based processes .
higher now . “ We are moving the industry from analogue to digital processes , removing both error and wasted resources , while bringing transparency and accuracy ,” Proxymity said to Global Custodian . “ True end-toend digital investor communications will become the standard for the global industry , and we are helping to make that happen .” The investments , partnerships and onboardings are enough to fill a page on their own here . The more recent include the closing of a $ 52 million Series B funding round , drawing additional investment from Citi Ventures , Deutsche Börse Group and investor communications provider
Mediant . There have been announcements during 2022 with BNP Paribas Securities Services , HSBC , BME , and Computershare , which followed rollouts for Citi , JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank in 2021 . As you can see , the industry is partnering with and adopting Proxymity rapidly . So why Proxymity ? Well , despite asset managers not wanting to waste their time worrying about corporate actions and proxy voting , numerous whitepapers and pieces of research in recent years have alerted them to the fact that the inefficiencies in the processes were costing over a billion dollars to the industry per year . A small amount per fund maybe , but a colossal cost as a whole . For asset managers with numerous intermediaries there have been cases of custodians providing conflicting event data , sometimes in non-STP formats , with the amount that is lost in revenue reflecting the inefficiencies of the entire corporate actions and proxy voting chain . This is because a lot of the information from a proxy event is not standardised or digitised from the source . Rather , there is a lag when custodians manually input the information into an electronic format and it is then passed on to the next intermediary . This is where the information is most susceptible to deviate and even be delayed for the end investor as this process is repeated . So a tip of the hat to co-founders Dean Little , and Jonathan Smalley , they created something the industry has truly taken to .
Notable partners and collaborators : BNP Paribas Securities Services , BNY Mellon , Clearstream , Citi , Deutsche Bank , HSBC , State Street
38 Global Custodian Fall 2022