XBRL US and Securities Operations Forum today jointly announced "Corporate Actions 2009: Improving Issuer-Investor Communication by reducing risk and cost through technology standards", a conference to be held on May 28, 2009 in New York City at The Westin New York at Times Square. This one-day conference is the first of its kind to explore how establishing and implementing standards for the creation, processing, distribution and analysis of corporate actions data can reduce processing costs, result in more accurate information and improve timeliness. For more information and to register, click here or go to

Today, public company events are disseminated through press releases and prospectuses. Data intermediaries, asset servicers, processing agents and others access these source documents, interpret the event and manually rekey it into their own databases using a data standard broadly used by the financial markets. This information, called corporate actions, is used to settle accounts and provide investors with market-moving information. Public company press releases and prospectuses do not follow a standard in how corporate action events are defined, which leads to a lack of clarity and the potential for inaccuracies in interpreting the corporate actions data. The use of an agreed-upon standard by issuers in addition to others in the corporate actions supply chain will save time and money for public companies, processing agents, asset servicers and investors.

The program will provide a detailed examination of the business case for solutions through standards and will culminate in the unveiling of a new technology demonstration based on XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) for corporate actions data. A key value of the demonstration is that it will show how corporate actions information can be converted from the XBRL technology standard into the ISO business standard -- the language that is used to reach investors.

The conference is hosted jointly by XBRL US, the national consortium for XML business reporting standards, and by Securities Operations Forum, an educational center for operations professionals in the financial services industry. The event is presented in association with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and SWIFT, the global provider of financial messaging for over 200 countries (75 million corporate actions messages in 2008).

"This conference is designed to help foster agreement between public companies and custodians on the complex nature of corporate actions data," said Donald F. Donahue, Chairman and CEO of DTCC. "The process as it stands today is rife with inefficiencies that add significant processing costs, and can result in inaccurate corporate data. At the conference, we will outline a roadmap for reducing the costs and inaccuracies by leveraging the agreed-upon ISO standard for the data and conveying that information in an XBRL format."

The event will feature speakers including:

Donald F. Donahue, Chairman and CEO of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC)

Jeffrey Morgan, President and CEO, the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI)

Alfred R. Berkeley, Chairman, Pipeline Financial Systems LLC and Chair, XBRL US Board

David Blaszkowsky, Director, Office of Interactive Disclosure, Securities and Exchange Commission

Jamie Shay, Head of Standards, SWIFT

Panel sessions will cover the in-depth business case, which addresses the costs and pain points in the current process, global standard setting, and provide a detailed look at an XBRL-based technology solution that is being developed using the ISO standard for corporate actions.

"Today, the challenge of interpreting different information from multiple sources about corporate events creates process inefficiencies which impact the end investor," said Chris Church, Global Head of Securities, Chief Executive for Americas, SWIFT. "Enabling the creation of corporate action announcements in a structured, ISO-based format by the issuer is not only a vital next step in improving efficiencies for SWIFT's clients in the asset servicing business - it will also allow issuers to provide a better service to their shareholders."

Individuals who should attend the conference from the issuer side include financial executives, corporate secretaries, and investor relations officers as well as underwriters and attorneys. Regulators, custodians, broker dealers and investors involved in corporate actions should also attend. For more information and to register, click here or go to