About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Greater Automation Could Pay Dividends for Banks in April

Subscribe to our newsletter

By Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft, a Cognizant company.

With the first round of the dividends season upon us, it is not only the front office that is preoccupied right now. Dividends are one of many forms of claims that also require attention in the back office. The typically busy period in April, when vast numbers of companies issue their dividends to a huge number of investors, poses an inescapable challenge from a claims perspective.

Much can change between the allocation and apportioning of dividends to investors between the announcement and payment of the final dividend. Before the right funds can be sent, or recovered, to or from the correct shareholder’s account, a monetary claim is generated internally for validation and processing by the corporate actions team, notably on cross border activities.

Pulling together the many different pieces of data required to validate and process the dividend payment can be complex, particularly if you are relying on manual processes and disparate data sources across a range of different dividends and across borders and regions. It is easy to see why this tangled web of claims can tie up huge resources working long hours.

For dividends, as for other claims, the goal is to digitise and centralise the data into a single source in order to provide the levels of transparency that banks need to facilitate end-to-end automation of the claims process.

The issue is that too many financial institutions currently run slow receivable and payable cycles. Relying on manual approaches built up over numerous years, many are unable to efficiently process dividend claims, auto chase counterparties, make auto payments and settle balances. There is also a lack of real-time analytics covering the situation and funds involved.

With dividends season underway, many banks will be feeling the effects and costs of outdated systems and processes. Only by re-engineering the claims process can they lighten the load in dividend season and achieve improved straight-through-processing (STP) rates with fewer exceptions, and faster, more accurate delivery of requests for payment, greatly improving both balance sheet and client service.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Potential and pitfalls of large language models and generative AI apps

Large language models (LLMs) and Generative AI applications are a hot topic in financial services, with vendors offering solutions, financial institutions adopting the technologies, and sceptics questioning their outcomes. That said, they are here to stay, and it may be that early adopters of Generative AI apps could gain not only operational benefits, but also...

BLOG

Informatica Provides Trusted Data for Amazon Bedrock Generative AI Service

Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management provider, has extended its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer support for the company’s Bedrock generative AI service and integration with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) Access Grants. Amazon Bedrock, which AWS announced in April 2023 and made generally available in September 2023, is designed to help...

EVENT

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology, London

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology London on September 19th at Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf London examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

Regulatory Data Handbook 2023 – Eleventh Edition

Welcome to the eleventh edition of A-Team Group’s Regulatory Data Handbook, a popular publication that covers new regulations in capital markets, tracks regulatory change, and provides advice on the data, data management and implementation requirements of more than 30 regulations across UK, European, US and Asia-Pacific capital markets. This edition of the handbook includes new...