Corporate Action Message Standardisation (CAMS)

In today’s Hong Kong cash market, listed issuers disseminate corporate action (CA) event information in an unstructured PDF format that is published through the HKEXnews website. Market participants such as CCASS participants, financial intermediaries and investors, largely interpret this bulk of unstructured and non-standardised information manually. Such processes naturally result in significant and unnecessary delays, risks and costs.

With the aid of the standardised messaging format of SWIFT’s ISO 15022 and ISO 20022, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is launching the Corporate Action Message Standardisation (CAMS) project to facilitate market participants in achieving Straight Through Processing (STP) when handling CA event information in the Hong Kong cash market. This solution aims to standardise and streamline the existing processes and maximise efficiencies for market participants.

Current Pain Points
Potential for information misinterpretation	CA event information is currently disseminated by the issuer in an unstructured format, which may lead to ambiguities and misinterpretation when extracting information.
Processing times	The current process remains unsystematic due to the nature of the data, which may extend processing times and cause delays in reporting.
Data accuracy	Processing non-standardised CA event information naturally increases the risk of errors.
Operational effort	Data extraction and processing of CA event information largely involve manual work. With the number of listed companies steadily growing, the associated increased volumes of CA events will only incur higher operational costs and efforts in the future.

Current Pain Points

CAMS Service Model

CAMS Value Proposition
Real-time information	CAMS offers real-time and comprehensive CA event information.
Standardisation	CA event messages will be compliant with ISO 15022 and/or ISO 20022, giving subscribers the option to select their suitable messaging standard. The CAMS service allows for the dissemination of structured CA event information directly from issuers without manual intervention.
Efficiency	By increasing the STP rate for CA event information processing, this will improve downstream efficiency and result in related cost savings. The CAMS service will cover the CA event types that account for the majority of CA volumes.
Risk reduction	Operational risk will be reduced, as CA event information is effectively received directly from issuers. Without the need for manually interpreting CA data, the risk of judgement or human error is also reduced.

CAMS Value Proposition

Scope of CA Event Information for CAMS Service

Upon completion of SWIFT setup, CCASS participants are able to receive ISO SWIFT messages once an issuer creates, updates or withdraws the CA event information.

CA event types covered for the CAMS service include:

Cash dividend
Cash dividend with currency option
Cash dividend with scrip option
Cash dividend with currency and scrip options
Bonus issue of shares or warrants
Interest payment
Meeting notification

CA Type	ISO 15022	ISO 20022
Cash dividend (including scrip and currency options)
Bonus issue of shares or warrants
Interest payment
Meeting notification	X

CA Type	ISO 15022	ISO 20022

Documentation

For more information, please contact: hksccn_cams@hkex.com.hk

Updated 03 Sep 2021