Shareholder identification according to SRD II Implementation of a German platform for identifying shareholders in accordance with SRD II
Technologies
Customer benefits
- drastic simplification of processes
- high security
- clear user interface
- significant time savings
Approximately one in six Germans invests in shares, funds, or similar financial products. From 2019 to 2020 alone, the number of shareholders living in Germany increased by almost 30 percent. If, however, companies want to find out who holds their shares, they have, until now, had to do so through the individual banks. Each bank had to be contacted and the information received consolidated. Our client’s shareholder identification platform aims to drastically simplify this process.
With inovex’s help, the platform was successfully digitalised and made fit for the future. The result is a central tool which enables publicly traded companies to obtain relevant information about their shareholders and to contact them about corporate actions.
The vision: One platform, all the information
Until now, German companies who wanted to know how many shareholders held how many of their shares have had to invest a great deal of time and organizational effort into gathering this information. Large companies often have several hundred thousand shareholders. These, in turn, hold their shares through a variety of intermediaries, such as banks or trading platforms. Until now, therefore, conducting a survey of all shareholders meant contacting each intermediary and requesting shareholder information, a process made even more complicated by the fact that banks and platforms are sometimes connected in chains and are only aware of their closest linked contacts. Loss of information is, therefore, sometimes inevitable.
Our client’s platform makes this process much easier and more reliable. It enables the information to be automatically retrieved, consolidated, and processed for use via the SWIFT network.
Integration of new technologies into both the solution and the organisation
Data security was a key factor in the development of the platform, and inovex security experts monitored the development. This enabled the creation of a system which processes sensitive data securely and in compliance with data protection regulations.
In order to facilitate agile development, multiple organisation, documentation, and development systems were provided and set up. In addition to using Jira for project organisation and Confluence as a wiki to document the project’s progress, inovex developed the project in its own server environment.
For the backend, inovex chose a microservices approach using Spring Boot and Kotlin. This ensures that the system will remain scalable and future-proof. inovex’s end-to-end approach meant that inovexperts supported every aspect of the project – from organising the methods used to providing advice on the optimal infrastructure, right through to developing the frontend and backend and designing the UI/UX.
Agile development
It was important to the client that agile working methods were used during the development of the platform to enable the team to flexibly contribute new ideas. To this end, therefore, inovex held workshops in which the project participants were trained as product owners, thus integrating them more closely into the project and enabling them to play an even more significant role in shaping the platform’s development.
“The platform can be used so intuitively by our customers that it can be considered a resounding success. It has established itself on the market and has already attracted international interest. The following factors played an important role in achieving this outstanding result: the complex background analysis and implementation, the consideration involved in optimally incorporating all the stakeholders’ requirements, and the coronavirus-related restructuring of the entire team’s working environment.” – Product Owner
In a two-day workshop on user story mapping, inovex first determined which features the platform needed and how the most important information should be made clear and easy to access. Agile methods were then used to create a new web application within the first sprint. Once this was complete, the features previously identified were evaluated for their economic viability and then developed.
Although the client had not used agile working methods before this project, the team was willing to change up their usual working patterns. This enabled close cooperation and the establishment of the requisite level of trust. The success of the project essentially depended on the transparent, collaborative, and equal partnership formed between inovex and the client.
The platform is so intuitive for our customers to use that the result is that it is perceived as an excellent product that has established itself on the market and already attracted international interest at an early stage. The following factors have played an important role in this: the complex analysis and implementation in the background, the consideration of the best possible inclusion of the requirements of all stakeholders and, at the same time, the corona-related adaptation of the working environment of the entire team.
Product Owner, inovexThe new platform solution
Not only does the platform offer publicly traded companies the opportunity to identify and group their shareholders, it also enables them to contact them. Data is transferred via the secure SWIFT network, which routes the enquiries to the various banks. These then feed their answers back to the platform via the same system. The data is then processed and cleaned up in the platform. This enables, for example, information on shareholders who hold shares in the same company via multiple banks or platforms to be consolidated. It also allows a variety of reports to be created, such as a list of the top ten shareholders. These reports enable companies to see which industries and countries their largest shareholders belong to and which banks these shareholders primarily use.
In addition, the platform’s Corporate Actions feature can be used to send messages to shareholders via the banks in the custody chain — whether, for example, these are notifications of upcoming Annual General Meetings or information on dividend distributions.
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