Koscom offers Corporate Actions Information

Koscom announced on February 1st that they will start providing services to domestic and overseas financial services as well as the information users as soon as completing the system which creates reliable Corporate Action information.

Corporate Action information refers to all data related to the rights (i.e. dividends, increase of capital, merger, division, and stockholders meeting) for listed companies. It is one of the necessary Reference Data in order to accurately evaluate the value of securities and process the business before/after trade. Consequently, it has become more essential lately due to STP(Straight Through Processing) of financial services and the expansion of global direct investment.

According to Koscom, Corporate Action Information will be provided with Data Feed through its integrated financial information terminal called "CHECK", or network. Koscom added that they are currently negotiating with 'S' Securities and 'B' information operator for a plan in which Koscom will offer its services.

Currently, domestic banking institutions not only deal with Corporate Action information but also handle the financial information which are scattered in different organizations and collected by hand or unstandardized format. Accordingly, financial agencies are exposed to risk of financial transactions because of arising difficulties in processing along with the problems of data inaccuracy.

One financial expert commented that in case Koscom offers structured data with using a standardized format, financial agencies will successfully enhance the efficiency. The specialist also evaluated that if Koscom enables the integration services of all sorts of reliable reference data along with its market data, it would be a great help to create more advanced and automated systems for domestic financial services. 

Regarding this matter Jung, Tae Young, the manager of marketing planning team of Koscom said, "With the opening of offering the Corporate Action information service, we are considering promoting the integrated services by collecting, producing and standardizing reliable but diversified reference data within the country or among foreign countries."

In the near future, there is a very good chance that the internal and external reference data will continuously grow in importance when the Korean financial market is being advanced and globalized and domestic investors' investment in overseas accelerates.

Reference Data

Reference Data refers to a basic and reference information, such as every kind of corporation data, securities information, trading parties, customer information, and data regarding Basel II including corporate action information. Followed by the development of the financial markets, for example the launch of various derivatives products, and OTC market activation, data became the most crucial and essential component for financial services automation.

STP(Straight Through Processing) 

Straight Through Processing(STP) enables the entire trade process for securities from ordering to settlement and payment transactions by financial institutions to be conducted electronically.