Madhu Kannan, Managing Director & CEO, BSE, said, "SWIFT solution will give custodians access to high quality data on corporate actions. There is a lot of interest in the international arena for corporate actions data from India, and I believe the potential for this tie up is quite high."

Adam Wilson, Head of Securities Markets for SWIFT Asia Pacific, commented, "This improvement to the speed, accuracy and automation of corporate information to the end investor means global and domestic investors will have better information about the Indian market. This is particularly important to global investors, which are increasingly interested in corporate event information from India and in participating in this dynamic market."

Custodians join the effort

At present four custodians — Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, Citibank and HSBC — have opted for the service, with other large Indian and domestic custodians getting ready for testing. Whilst the service will initially be used by the custodian bank community, brokers, hedge funds, the investment management community or in fact anyone on the SWIFT network can utilise the new facility.

"The Corporate Announcement STP project will make huge in roads in the Indian Capital market wherein today the data feeds for corporate actions are manually driven," said Rajiv Relhan, Regional Head, Securities Services, South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Standard Chartered Bank. "The partnership between BSE and SWIFT has come a long way in delivering this product what we call as a big market enabler. This development has come as an operational relief for market participants and to custodians like us and will further improve our service standards with our clients. Our congratulations to BSE and SWIFT for making this a success and we look forward for further such enhancements in the capital market."

"Supported by an unmatched commitment to enhanced electronic and automated solutions for clients, Citi stands as a pioneer of securities processing projects in India," said Debopama Sen, Managing Director, Head of Securities and Fund Services, India, Citi."The recent automation of corporate action information by BSE via SWIFT is a significant step towards ensuring investors receive due benefits and is consistent with our strategy with promoting straight-through processing initiatives in this evolving market. Citi is proud to partner with SWIFT on this key industry initiative in India and we remain committed to providing our clients with accurate, timely and automated corporate action processing."

"HSBC in India is delighted to be associated with BSE and SWIFT in driving this key change in the Indian market. The new facility provided by the BSE allows HSBC in India to receive corporate actions intimations by SWIFT and onward disseminate corporate actions announcements in a STeP through manner to our clients. We believe our investment in this solution will bring about significant benefits to our clients as well as drive best-practice in the Indian market. We congratulate BSE and SWIFT on this key initiative," said Ranjan Bhattacharya, Head - Custody and Clearing India, HSBC.

The BSE service currently covers three events types: Stock splits, Dividends and Bonus. Two additional event types, Meetings and Rights, are planned to go live by end of June 2010.

BSE is also looking at using SWIFT to improve automation in other areas, such as settlements and mutual funds.

Better information for investors in a growing market

The dissemination of Issuer (listed company) information from a stock exchange or depository is nothing new, however previously this information in India was sent manually, which meant that the process of sharing corporate action information was time-consuming, error-prone and not in any structured format that could be automatically loaded into middle and back office systems. Investors at the end of the chain often paid the price of this poor information - not just in terms of the cost of producing and receiving the information, but also because they did not have a clear view of their investments. Because the SWIFT service from the BSE allows for automation across the entire investment transaction chain, investors will now be better informed about their investments.

The service is based on the global ISO 15022 standards, with the messaging formats adapted to Indian market needs by the BSE in consultation with the custodian community and SWIFT.

"This is a terrific example of the Indian financial community working together to standardise and automate around a key market infrastructure using the global financial co-operative that they own, which is SWIFT," said Arun Tiwari, Head of India and the Sub-continent for SWIFT. "That's exactly the purpose of SWIFT and that's why we are committed to India: to support the Indian financial sector establish best practice for the benefit of its existing and future customers in India and around the world."