25 January 2024

Depositaries expand their value chain: These are the services that they are going to reinforce this year

FundsPeople

In addition to depositary and custodian activities, Cecabank offers a range of other services to its customers, extending the Securities Services value chain. This is precisely the part of the business that they have been reinforcing and expanding in recent years with the goal of offering a more comprehensive service to fund managers and, at the same time, differentiating themselves from the competition and offering added value.

In particular, we are talking about services such as reporting, attendance at shareholder meetings, tax recovery services or legal advice. To learn more about what Cecabank intends to strengthen or launch this year, we asked Aurora Cuadros, Corporate Director of Securities Services at Cecabank.

This year we will continue to add features to some of our distinguishing services, such as our tax services, including in our scope the claiming of withholding taxes via the Court of Justice of the European Union. Cecabank has signed an agreement with WTAX to collaborate in the recovery of withholding taxes before the Court of Justice of the European Union for those funds to which the depositary/custody service is provided.

In the area of socially responsible investing, we have entered into a collaboration agreement with Clarity AI, a digital native company founded in 2017 that offers a globally recognised and award-winning sustainability technology platform. Through this platform, customers are offered the possibility to adapt to the rapid pace of change in technology and in sustainability assessment and reporting requirements.

On the other hand, recent legislative and regulatory updates to the Securities Market Act have driven businesses related to the tokenisation of digital assets. In this regard, Cecabank, in compliance with the requirements established by this new regulation, is finalising the configuration of the provision of ERIR (Registration Entity) services to Issuers for issuances of tokenised digital assets in the primary market. In this vein, we are exploring first-hand the role of the custodian in this new ecosystem, which will be as crucial as in the traditional custodian world.

Shall we talk?