Increasing the number of mandated shareholdings on a client’s register can lead to a substantial saving on their dividend costs. What’s more, it can deliver budgetary security from as yet unknown future third-party cost increases. At Equiniti, we are continually thinking about identifying and improving ways to promote the benefits of mandating to your shareholders to support our client’s shareholder strategies.
Stuart Simpson, Registration Services Development Senior Manager, explains:
We have seen fantastic success from recent campaigns, including improving how we notify shareholders of unclaimed dividend payments on stationery and reviewing prominence, positioning and understanding of the messaging.
Stuart continues: “This has all resulted in higher mandate take-up than ever before – over 159,000 last year, but we always want to do more.”
Equiniti has recently identified an opportunity to promote BACS mandating to those shareholders transferring some or part of their holding via Non-Market Transfers. Last year, Equiniti processed c.75,000 Non-Market Transfers across all clients, and whether the transfer added to an existing shareholding or created a new shareholding, it represents a ready-made opportunity to capture the shareholder’s BACS instructions. He adds:
This approach is simple but effective. It complements the activities you undertake, whether by a shareholder welcome pack or mandate promotion via dividend stationery.
By including a bank mandate as part of the Stock Transfer Form documentation, Equiniti is now able to capture BACS instructions at the very first point of contact. Not only does this catch the transferee’s interest when they complete the form, but generating a positive shareholder action at this point saves our clients the cost of any future mandate promotional material.
The new documentation went live in November 2014 for all Stock Transfer Forms obtained from Equiniti. “We now have more opportunities to capture mandate instructions than ever before, and we’ve been delighted with the shareholder response so far,” says Stuart. “We are the first registrar in the industry to implement this, and we are pleased to do so at no cost to our clients. This is another example of Equiniti leading the way by considering your needs and identifying opportunities to create benefits for our clients.”
For further information, please contact your account manager.