In 2009 XBRL US, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Swift teamed up to explore using the language to reduce corporate actions' cost and time and improve data quality.

As part of the initiative XBRL US has now finalised the taxonomy - a collection of data tags that are aligned with elements of the ISO 20022 global corporate actions standard. It has 550 base elements and covers 94 types of corporate action events.

Currently, corporate actions processing requires public company issuers to submit text-formatted documents such as news releases and regulatory filings which are then interpreted and re-keyed by stock markets, issuer agents and data intermediaries before the time-sensitive information is available to shareholders.

The new taxonomy standardises this free-form text into electronic documents that can be used by issuers to ensure written words hold the same meaning for all parties throughout the corporate actions lifecycle. Having issuers electronically tag corporate actions data in XBRL allows it to be delivered straight from the issuer to the investor without re-keying or interpretation through multiple interfaces.

Last year the Issuer to Investor: Corporate Actions group published a business case, estimating some US$400 million savings annually if issuers use XBRL in the US. XBRL US is also working with Citi on a pilot - that will run until November - to test the premise that the use of structured, computer-readable data can streamline the process and introduce STP.

Donald Donahue, president and CEO, DTCC, says: "The goal all along has been to make it easy and inexpensive for issuers to identify and tag key data as they prepare documents for a corporate action. Completion of the corporate actions taxonomy represents a significant milestone in this undertaking and moves us a step closer to straight-through-processing."