Advancing Corporate Actions Operations through Improved Data, Standards and Technology

Last week’s Corporate Actions luncheon in Tokyo, held in partnership with SIX, brought together Japanese banks, securities firms and asset managers to discuss the increasing operational risks in Corporate Actions and how better data, clearer standards and technology-enabled processing can support stronger and more resilient operations.

The event opened with a presentation from Toshi Sunagawa, Country Deputy Head Japan at SIX, who outlined key considerations around Corporate Actions data quality. He highlighted the importance of accuracy, timeliness and consistency in event information, and how gaps or unstructured details can quickly create downstream challenges for operations teams. His remarks provided strong starting points for the discussions that ensued.

This was followed by a presentation from Adam Cottingham, Smartstream’s Head of Asset Servicing. In his first session, Adam provided an industry view of the pressures shaping Corporate Actions today. He explained how rising event volumes, the growth of more complex voluntary events and tighter turnaround times are placing greater strain on teams. He also emphasised that manual intervention and fragmented workflows remain significant contributors to operational cost, delays and avoidable risk.

Adam then examined where risk typically arises across the Corporate Actions lifecycle. He showed how inconsistencies introduced early in the process, whether through incomplete event data or unclear descriptions, often escalate into larger breaks that affect entitlement accuracy, instruction management and reconciliation. He also provided an overview of ISO 20022, demonstrating how structured and clearly defined messaging reduces ambiguity, improves transparency and supports more predictable downstream processing. Although migration requires planning, the gains in visibility, consistency and control were evident.

Adam also invited attendees to consider three reflective questions that framed the discussion on future readiness:

• What has the largest impact on operational risk?
• What is the biggest obstacle to business process redesign?
• What are the important components of the business case for process optimisation?

As the final session, my presentation focused on how Smartstream’s Air can widen processing visibility and improve data validation ahead of critical lifecycle points. Using example datasets, I demonstrated how Air identifies inconsistencies at source, enabling operations teams to reduce avoidable errors and strengthen decision-making. The emphasis was on practical, immediate improvements that firms can adopt to enhance the reliability of their Corporate Actions processing.

There was clear engagement around the challenges of verifying data consistency and accuracy, underlining how central these issues remain for Corporate Actions teams. This aligned closely with the broader themes raised throughout the luncheon, particularly the growing operational risk landscape, the foundational role of high-quality data and the importance of standards such as ISO 20022 in improving clarity and reducing interpretation.