Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), the leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, today announced the launch of the first in a series of new tools to support the Cost Basis Reporting Regulation, a provision of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
The law requires that, effective January 1, 2011, financial intermediaries provide to investors and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the adjusted cost basis for covered securities. This new regulation will provide investors the means to accurately report gains or losses on the sale of securities for their annual tax filings.
This cost basis solution from Fiserv allows for efficient daily import and calculation of data from books and records to provide adjusted cost basis information -- information that can be used for reporting tax-aware strategies and for responding to tax harvest requests.
Fiserv has worked closely with its straight-through trading partners, as well as the custodians and third party vendors who provide books and records to identify changes they may or may not be making to support the regulation.
Many partners are making changes to accept "versus purchase" data in trading messages, which the allocation communication process from Fiserv already supports. In order to ensure accurate processing of specified lot relief, reconciliation is required to go down to the tax lot level. In response to this requirement, Fiserv has introduced a full tax lot data reconciliation solution. This technology, available now, provides clients with reports and automated synchronization tools that identify and reduce differences across the entire APL platform between tax lot data, including cost basis information. The reconciliation will enable clients to maintain tax lot consistency from one application to the next. Data synchronization reduces inconsistencies to enable accurate reconciliation and provides transparent client data that can then be reported to the IRS and the end investor.
"In this era of increased regulation and reporting, Fiserv is committed to providing tools that enable our clients to successfully support these new requirements," said Cheryl Nash, senior vice president of Strategic Marketing and Business Development, Investment Servicess, Fiserv. "We partnered with our clients to ensure that our solution supports seamless integration with the platforms that will be reporting the accurate adjusted cost basis to the IRS and investor. The systems integration offering allows us to incorporate this data, so that our clients can ultimately report accurate gain loss data and make effective tax aware trading decisions.