Citi and Computershare Collaborate to Launch Innovative Digital Platform for Proxy Voting

Following the successful production pilot, Citi has rolled out ProxymitySM, an innovative digital proxy voting platform developed through Citi’s D10XSM program. As a result of the collaboration between Citi and Computershare, the global market leader in share registration and meeting services, both organisations are able to deliver meaningful and measurable voting-related benefits to institutional investors and public companies.

Proxymity has been successfully used by key investors at 17 shareholder meetings in the UK, 8 of which were for FTSE100 companies, and the platform is on track to support up to 200 meetings in the UK throughout 2018.

By using a core algorithm to streamline the flow of information between intermediaries, Proxymity maximises the accuracy and transparency of the current shareholder meeting voting ecosystem. The platform removes inefficiencies by directly connecting the issuers to the investors.

“Our corporate issuer clients have long sought ways to more efficiently identify and communicate with their institutional investors whose investments are often held by nominees and custodians. Through this effective collaboration with Citi, issuers and institutional investors will now in practice both benefit from investors having more time to digest, communicate and convey voting intentions on important matters that are decided at shareholder meetings,” said Paul Conn, President of Global Capital Markets at Computershare.

Through the pioneering solution, issuers can receive real-time confirmation of investor votes as soon as these are entered onto the platform, from the moment the shareholder meeting has been announced through to the deadline. Investors benefit from improved voting cut-off dates in comparison to current practices, with up to nine additional days to research the meeting and cast their votes through the platform; which in addition provides post-meeting vote confirmation to investors.

“Enhancing transparency and efficiency in the proxy voting chain is of utmost importance to ensure high quality and accuracy of our voting activities. Proxymity’s ability to verify the votes cast at shareholder meetings improves the effectiveness of our voting activities and allows real-time engagement between issuers and investors”, said Carola van Lamoen, Head of Active Ownership at Robeco. “We will continue to support initiatives such as Proxymity as voting along with our engagement activities can influence companies to generate a positive impact and added value for our clients”.

Proxymity is one of the first initiatives to launch from Citi’s D10X program, an internal strategic growth model that enables employees to take new business ideas from concept to launch. The platform was developed by employees of Citi’s Custody and Fund Services business. Employees participating in Citi’s D10X program are coached through a rigorous validation process led by Citi Ventures and supported by Citi’s innovation labs globally. The underlying Proxymity technology was developed at the Citi Innovation Lab in Tel Aviv.

“As Proxymity continues to gain momentum, we are pleased to support a growing number of issuers and investors on the platform and meet users’ requirements for a simpler, faster and more transparent way of performing proxy voting,” said Jonathan Smalley, co-founder of the ProxymitySM Platform, Citi. “We look forward to working with Computershare and other key stakeholders across the proxy voting ecosystem to deliver further efficiency and bring additional markets onto the platform.”