KDD, the central securities depository of Slovenia, is partnering with London-based technology supplier Securities Grid to launch “a digital ownership management platform” this year.
The new platform implementation is meant to facilitate a range of possible interactions between equity issuers and their shareholders. Among those listed in KDD’s press release, are secure registry access and change monitoring, data exchange around issuance and distribution, dividend payments execution and other corporate actions, and streamlining of operations for shares with built-in pre-emption rights and transfer restrictions.
Advantages are supposed to benefit both listed and non-listed issuers.The platform has been piloted in 2019 by two Slovenian issuers: property firm BTC Company and the national lottery operator Loterija Slovenije.
Small – but progressive
Securities Grid seeks to become “the utility company of the capital markets”, using DLT-enabled solutions. Operationally, it leans on collaboration with Swiss software provider Netcetera.
While being a relatively small player in the European financial landscape, KDD seems to be seeking a position near the technology front. Its services have been compliant with the Eurosystem’s pan-European Target2-Securities framework since 2017. In its new press release on the DLT partnership, KDD mentions specifically that it was a co-author to last year’s policy paper on DLT by the International Securities Service Association (ISSA), a paper we have touched upon in previous articles here (from Urs Sauer’s presentation at PostTrade 360° Helsinki) and here (with a link to the paper as such).
“KDD’s strategy to this disruptive and innovative technology is to utilize the benefits of DLT network technology for complex data exchange amongst its core registry services and its systemic members as a first use case. In the future, KDD will continue to utilize the strong DLT infrastructure foundation developed by Securities Grid to explore native digital asset issuance as the EU regulatory environment matures and progresses,” adds the Slovenian CSD.