If you've ever worked in a brokerage firm, you know what a pain corporate actions can be. The shocking part is that they are still processed manually in many cases, with people scouring electronically fed releases and news items. The work is mind-numbing but problems easily crop up and touch many customers quickly.

There are some interesting developments afoot. Most seem to think that XBRL is the answer. Three groups--XBRL International in the United States, Swift and the DTCC have set up three committees of issuers, financial intermediaries and investors, respectively. All will work toward XBRL tagging techniques appropriate for corporate actions, reports Securities Industry News. The three groups are also working to create an initial taxonomy for issuers to use in tagging corporate actions. The main exchanges at some point will have to take a look at when the time is right to require XBRL tagging. The initial work is certainly underway.