Chapter 5: The issuer disconnect
The missing link in the chain
If we want to solve the asset servicing challenge, we must look upstream to where the data originates: the Issuer. However, our research reveals a fundamental disconnect - while the downstream market (custodians and investors) is pushing hard for automation, the upstream market (issuers) see little incentive to change, perhaps not appreciating the benefits to their investors.
The high cost of communication
Communicating a corporate event is not cheap. It is resource and cost-intensive for issuers.
Our survey findings show that the average cost per issuer is approximately $500K to communicate a single corporate event to their shareholders. This figure encompasses legal fees, registrar costs, and the operational overhead of distributing information through the value chain.
Furthermore, it is a heavy ‘people process.’ Despite advances in technology, it is still a heavily manual process. The average issuer involves, on average, 44 people in the distribution of a single event. In fact, this feels conservative when we consider that 20% of issuers deploy teams of over 100 people for the same purpose.
This suggests that despite digitisation, the emergence of new technology, which up to 33% of the post-trade actors (CSDs and downstream) are now leveraging to support certain asset servicing events, issuers still rely on ‘high touch’ people centric draft‑review‑broadcast cycles.
It costs USD500k to communicate a single corporate event today to shareholders
The good enough myth
If it costs $500K and requires an average of 44 people to process an event, why haven’t issuers automated? The answer lies in how they define quality and obligation.
65% of the issuers who responded to our survey prioritise speed and ease of communication. But only 44% cite machine readable / automated formats (e.g. ISO 20022) as important. And they believe they are doing a good job.
However, there is a gap between ‘human accuracy (a perfect PDF) and machine accuracy (a perfect ISO 20022 message). Essentially issuers want a press release that investors can read; whereas the market wants an ISO 20022 message that their platform can process STP.
While confidence is high, 85% of issuer respondents consider their notifications to be accurate and 84% timely, yet 53% acknowledge that they are not enabling downstream automation. Again, the asset servicing contradiction plays out.
Fundamentally, issuers are fulfilling their regulatory obligation to ‘announce,’ but they are not fulfilling the market's operational need to ‘process’.
Limited downside risk = limited urgency
Perhaps the most critical finding when it comes to issuer automation is the lack of consequences. We asked issuers what the downside risk is if they don't automate and distribute corporate event information in a machine-readable format by 2028. More than 70% of issuers acknowledged they face little short-term risk. 62% of issuers believe there is no downside risk in taking no action on automation. Why? The challenge is structural: the operational pain sits downstream. Custodian and brokers, not issuers, absorb the cost of manual re-keying, reconciliations, and processing delays. Issuers often remain unaware of the downstream impact of unstructured information, only noticing when a vote fails or a deadline slips.
Without regulatory pressure or commercial incentives, issuers have little reason to change. And yet this inertia jeopardises automation for every participant in the chain. Real progress depends on re‑balancing incentives and accountability, enabling issuers, custodians, intermediaries, and most importantly investors, to benefit directly from better data, faster communication, and shared digital standards.
Why not automate? Because it doesn’t matter today to 71% of issuers
So, what does move the issuers’ needle?
If automation is not compelling, what is? Issuers respond to visibility and speed.
When asked about their biggest challenges with voluntary events, the technical processing wasn't the main issue. The issues are strategic.
of issuers are struggling with visibility of event responses until right before the deadline
Whereas 30% struggle to identify beneficial owners. This all leaves a costly void. Issuers are spending $500K per announcement and then wait in the dark. Only 12% consider the ability to “ensure that 100% of elections are received”.
What is wrong with voluntary events for issuers? Visibility and time are issues – but not critical ones
The carrot and the stick
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Without time or incentives, issuers won’t voluntarily change, which undermines industry-wide efficiency gains."
Asset Servicing Lead, US Custodian
Currently, only 25% of issuers plan to transmit corporate actions in a machine-readable automated format by 2028. 55% simply ‘don't know’ whether they will. This is a generational lag, and with few incentives, the outlook for voluntary change is bleak.
So, how do we change this behaviour? We need to change the incentives and collaborate across the ecosystem. Without it, progress towards automation will remain slow.
What would trigger investment in automation? Faster communications would get 24% of issuers to invest
The carrot (time and cost)
Issuers are pragmatic, they care about time and cost. Only 18% of issuers said they would invest in machine-readable notifications purely for their own benefit. But 24% of issuers said they would do so if automation enabled faster communication with shareholders. If automation can be shown to give issuers extra time to lobby shareholders for a vote (by cutting out the manual processing time), they will listen.
Cost reduction is another motivator.
view lower operational spend and reduced headcount as key reasons to automate. The industry’s task is to demonstrate the collective value of automation: faster communication, reduced operational footprint and lower total cost per event. If not, it might be time for the stick.
The stick (regulation)
As seen in Europe with SRD II, where incentives fall short, regulation works (at least to an extent). Europe’s SRD II has measurably improved automation by mandating data and communications standards. In markets without similar regulatory pressure (like the US), issuers may lack the incentive to modernise. Ultimately, if voluntary progress stalls, new regulation may be the only catalyst strong enough to drive change.
…or the power of voluntary collaboration
Yet regulation isn’t the only path forward. Research by ISSA’s Asset Services Working Group, suggests that meaningful progress can also emerge from targeted industry collaboration. Over a dozen case studies show that progress is being made in golden copy announcement data.
Instead of waiting for new regulation, ISSA proposes that CSDs, listing authorities and exchanges take the lead by convening a Task Force to analyse current practices and to define and standardise the data points in order to automate announcements at source. By voluntarily establishing ‘golden operational records and global principles,’ the industry can improve both speed and governance through consensus rather than regulatory compliance.
The ball is in the industry’s court – including the issuers and their agents. Progress will depend on whether stakeholders choose to collaborate now or wait for regulation to decide for them.
