Key Findings
The global asset servicing industry has reached a tipping point.
global volume growth
Asia-Pacific volumes are expanding at double the pace of other regions with voluntary events growing by 49% year-on-year.
This surge is not just driven by domestic activity but by global cross-border investment, importing complexity into Asian operational teams.
growth in corporate action budgets, the lowest rate in three years
Budgets have stagnated.
COOs are under pressure to maintain the status quo as investment is redirected towards business growth initiatives, forcing operational teams to maximise current tactical systems and processes instead of making desperately needed strategic upgrades.
of asset servicing resources consumed by income and voluntary events
Headcount is squeezed yet expected to do more, as system spend is reducing by 41%.
Income events remain under‑analysed: 12% of respondents are seeing a serious rise in errors - an unseen drag on P&L. To bridge the growth gap, each firm needs to find up to 9 more people per market just to keep the lights on.
of brokers experiencing declining automation
Despite technological advancements, automation is going into reverse for many. Regionally, Europe reports the highest negative change, with 37% seeing automation levels deteriorate.
This decline is largely due to a lack of trust in upstream data and uncoordinated, localised standards which force many to go back to performing manual checks.
of errors driven by data issues
Bad data equals bad outcomes. Up to 67% of all asset servicing errors are due to data issues. Meanwhile, 58% of firms consider data quality to be the core barrier to automation way above technology limitations at 20%.
Even mandatory events, typically the most standardised, still record 64% of errors being linked to bad data, underscoring why automation must extend to a fully end‑to‑end lifecycle model.
Up to
escalation in costs
Costs are rising sharply across the board. Data is core to the cost problem, with data sourcing and validation cited as the #1 fastest-growing cost for 51% of investors and 50% of brokers.
Custodians and exchange/technology providers see increased costs in event processing of 47% and 52% respectively, as they struggle to clean, convert, and process non-standardised data.
cite client demand as the main trigger for new investment
The return on investment calculation has shifted. Demand is fueling investment in tax reclaims (47%) and mandatory corporate action events (43%), as investors look to optimise returns and reduce alpha leakage.
believe that CSDs should be responsible for the golden copy
The industry view is that CSDs and regulators should be in the driving seat to enforce standards for the cascade of announcement data published by issuers or their agents, with technology firms acting as critical enablers.
average cost for issuers to communicate a single corporate event
But there is a massive disconnect, and a paradox remains. Issuers believe they are delivering accuracy and timeliness yet 47% acknowledge that they are not enabling automation downstream.
And only 25% of issuers plan to transmit corporate actions in a machine-readable format by 2028. Is this an impasse?
Outsourcing is more than a cost lever - it is an automation and resilience accelerator
Firms using outsourced models record 3% fewer errors and save an average of $12K per event, proving that managed services and automation work best together.
By shifting complex, high‑volume processes to specialised partners, firms gain capacity, consistency, and resilience without increasing headcount.
