At DTCC’s Asset Services Virtual Forum, business leaders reported on progress in modernizing the financial industry through innovation, collaboration, and leveraging cutting-edge technologies.
Catch four key insights from the forum below. Want to learn more? Scroll to watch the full event replay.
- Digitizing the Securities Lifecycle
Patrick Barthel, DTCC Executive Director, Asset Services, introduced several of the strategic pillars guiding Asset Services, including digitizing the securities lifecycle, processing corporate actions once, and expanding DTCC’s offerings to new market segments.
He emphasized the importance of modernizing paper-centered processes and improving communication across the financial industry, leveraging new technologies to centralize and streamline industry workflows, minimize operational risks, and reduce costs.
“Digitizing traditional processes and focusing on removing pain points is a key driver for enhancing interoperability and communication standards within the financial sector,” said Barthel.
- Enhancing Corporate Actions Processing
Matt Schill, DTCC Executive Director, Asset Services, explored DTCC’s “processing corporate actions once” strategy. Schill discussed the industry’s current challenges, such as inefficient manual reconciliations and redundant data handling, proposing advancements such as an issuer direct announcement facility called AnnounceDirect, and a centralized, cloud-based platform for corporate actions where users can collaborate on event announcements in a transparent fashion.
This approach aims to reduce operational risks, global processing costs, and risks due to deteriorating straight through processing rates while enabling faster and standardized responses to corporate action events.
“The inefficiencies in corporate actions processing call for rethinking workflows — by integrating corporate action data upstream, we aim to reduce manual errors while improving risk management and data timeliness,” shared Schill.
- Extended 24x5 Trading Hours
Jessica Crosson, DTCC Director, Asset Services, and Anthony Macchiarulo, Assistant Vice President, SIFMA, discussed the recent industry proposal to extend trading hours to 24x5 (24 hours per day, Monday through Friday), highlighting preparatory work by SIFMA, exchanges, and DTCC.
Key considerations include finalizing principles for a standardized trading week, a daily market pause, trade date rollovers, and addressing corporate action handling challenges. Industry participants have been encouraged to actively engage with working groups to stay informed about the decision-making process.
“Shifting to 24x5 trading demands careful planning, from corporate actions handling to aligning trade date principles industry-wide,” said Crosson.
- Underwriting and Securities Processing Transformation
Barthel also reviewed the latest phases of DTCC’s Underwriting Transformation and Securities Processing Transformation programs — both of which aim to increase real-time processing efficiency.
Key developments include transitioning key processes, such as MMI issuance and obligation balancing, into centralized applications and APIs to digitize workflows. The underwriting program entered its third phase, introducing a rapid-issuance platform last October, while the Securities Processing Transformation program is carving a path for centralized billing based on industry feedback.
“Centralizing billing and leveraging flexible automation channels lets clients adapt based on their unique operational needs, paving the way for modernized asset servicing,” explained Barthel.
Want to learn more? Watch the event replay below for in-depth information on topics discussed.
