Fidelity ActionsXchange has rebranded to Fidelity Corporate Actions Solutions with a view to emphasising its provision of not only corporate actions data, but also analyst services and workflow solutions that ensure data accuracy and automate the lifecycle of corporate actions. The update comes as financial institutions extend their use of corporate actions data beyond back-office processing and into front-office investment decision making.
The company’s corporate actions service started as an internal technology project designed to help business units within Fidelity make golden copies of corporate actions. The project identified the need to enrich corporate actions data from sometimes inaccurate data feeds so that it could be efficiently integrated into downstream applications. Once up and running internally, the corporate actions service also became a commercial business that went on to operate under the Fidelity ActionsXchange name for 17 years until this week’s rebrand.
Fidelity Corporate Actions Solutions offers an automated software-as-a-service solution that operates on a 24×7 basis to support securities all over the world and meet the needs of large asset managers in different geographic regions. The service provides access to multiple data vendor feeds and can be customised to particular client requirements. From a technical perspective, it supports both the ISO 15022 and ISO 20022 messaging standards.
Will Dolan, head of Fidelity Corporate Actions Solutions, says the company has over 100 customers and usually competes with large asset managers running manual corporate actions processes. He differentiates the company’s service on the basis that it is automated and validates multiple corporate actions data sources, and notes that the company’s solutions include workflow tools to support the lifecycle of a corporate action.
Dolan explains: “Organisations want automated corporate actions solutions. We can meet this demand, which supports risk mitigation, as well as provide the efficiency of an end-to-end process that plays into straight through processing. As part of Fidelity we are also a trusted provider, which is a key selling point in the market.”
Over the past few years, Fidelity Corporate Actions Solutions has integrated its services and solutions into Fidelity’s infrastructure. It is also working with external partners and recently forged an alliance with Eagle Investment Systems that integrates its ActioNResponse corporate actions and response service with Eagle’s accounting platform.
Looking forward, the company plans to continue building out workflow solutions and simplifying the corporate actions data management process to improve straight through processing. It is also exploring ways to counter the rising cost of multiple market data feeds and supply accurate data at a lower cost. Dolan says possibilities here include data consolidation and more creative ways to source data, perhaps using unstructured data to enrich corporate actions data fields.
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