Depozitarul Central Implemented EU Standards For Corporate Actions Processing.

Depozitarul Central announces the approval of its rulebook amendments regarding the corporate actions standardization and provides to issuers and participants a new application for transmitting the information regarding the corporate events of securities for which Depozitarul Central acts as the issuer CSD. Through this application, the issuers transmit in a standardized electronic format the corporate action details. Depozitarul Central’s participants will receive that information in the same format and will be able to instruct on behalf of their clients for the corporate actions with options. The application can be accessed by participants also via SWIFT network and by the issuers via internet, using a digital certificate issued by any digital certification service provider recognized in Romania.

“Depozitarul Central is the first institution of its kind to implement in the region the EU standards for corporate actions processing. One of our main targets is to provide a strong and stable infrastructure, aligned to the European standards and adapted to the local market particularities. Reaching these objectives will place Depozitarul Central in the top league of the post-trading industry. Depozitarul Central projects, including this one, are major, important, they change principles and paradigms of infrastructure, and play an important role in the classification of Romania as emerging market.  As seen, many of the criteria fulfilled by the local market for its inclusion on the FTSE Russell - Watchlist Secondary Emerging are closely related to the post-trading activity. Therefore we reiterate our commitment to continue to contribute in building a mature and developed market, "said Marius Moldovan, Chairman of Depozitarul Central.

Corporate actions processing based on European standards improves the relationship between issuers and their shareholders, thus increasing the efficiency of their communication and processing. The transmission of the information on corporate actions in a standardized format eliminate possible different interpretations thereof, optimize operational processes and minimize risks.

 "Completing the implementation of the European standards for corporate actions processing is a major project for Depozitarul Central and the Romanian capital market. We continue to improve our services and to align them to the international requirements, in order to reach  highest  quality, at the same level as the other EU countries. It was a very complex project, with many resources allocated and plenty of commitment and dedication from our team. A special contribution had also our external partners, the FSA and the National Bank of Romania who approved the new rules applicable to the Romanian capital market for corporate action processing, Depozitarul Central issuers and participants which created together with us the market practice to be adopted in Romania and not least, the Bucharest Stock Exchange that has developed the software based on Depozitarul Central technical and functional specifications. Thank you all for your cooperation and we are happy to launch the new applications that will standardize and significantly facilitate the corporate actions processing" said Silvia Buicanescu, CEO, Depozitarul Central.

The important changes of Depozitarul Central system are aiming the alignment to the provisions of the regulatory framework[1] for corporate actions, which come into effect as of February 1, 2017.

The alignment of the practices for the corporate action processing to the European standards will increase the attractiveness of the local capital market, both for the foreign investors familiar with these practices in their countries of origin and for the Romanian investors, by using the same mechanism and predictable information, in line with international practices.

Another very important project, carried out in parallel with the one described above is the implementation of the second phase of the Depozitarul Central’s system connectivity to the pan-European platform TARGET2-Securities, developed by the Eurosystem for the settlements in euro, through the automated interface. Thus, a series of features were developed and the required interface was implemented so that the two systems will communicate automatically (without manual intervention), in  A2A - Application – to – Application mode. This step was absolutely necessary for the implementation of another project of Depozitarul Central which currently is in progress, namely: the Euro settlement of the transactions concluded on Bucharest Stock Exchange.