The European Central Bank has published an Advisory Group on Market Infrastructures for Securities and Collateral report setting out measures to facilitate the exercise of investor rights as part of the Savings and Investments Union agenda. Framed as input to the European Commission’s review of the Shareholder Rights Directive, the report proposes extending rights now limited to equity shareholders to investors in all financial instruments issued through European central securities depositories, including bondholders, and replacing the directive with an Investor Rights Regulation to create uniform application across the European Union. It also calls for a Single Rulebook for Corporate Events, built on AMI-SeCo standards, to harmonise how issuers, central securities depositories and intermediaries handle corporate event information, key dates, meetings and pending transactions. A central operational proposal is to make the issuer central securities depository the single trusted source of corporate event data. Issuers or their agents would be required to provide complete, accurate and standard-compliant information using ISO 20022, and issuer central securities depositories would have to distribute it without delay through the custody chain. The report also proposes harmonised corporate event key dates, earlier record dates for meetings so investors can vote on actual positions, and consistent transaction management processes for market claims, transformations and buyer protection. On investor identification, the report draws on a 2025 AMI-SeCo survey across 20 markets and points to fragmentation in scope, authentication practices, use of thresholds, communication formats, data quality, timeliness, fees and enforcement. Proposed changes include making any security issued through an EEA central securities depository eligible for investor identification, abolishing targeted requests and optional holding thresholds, assigning verification responsibilities to issuer central securities depositories, requiring ISO 20022 messaging across the chain, improving identifier and contact data standards, and considering stronger enforcement for non-compliance. AMI-SeCo said it will continue developing market standards to support the Savings and Investments Union, including further work on the Single Rulebook for Corporate Events throughout 2026. The report notes that the measures could later be extended further as digital assets and a European tokenised financial ecosystem develop.
European Central Bank2026-06-12
European Central Bank publishes report proposing an Investor Rights Regulation and single rulebook for corporate events
The European Central Bank has published an AMI-SeCo report proposing a new Investor Rights Regulation and a Single Rulebook for Corporate Events as input to the review of the Shareholder Rights Directive. The report would extend investor rights beyond shareholders, require issuers to provide ISO 20022 corporate event data through issuer central securities depositories, and harmonise key dates, meetings and transaction management. It also proposes broad changes to investor identification, including wider scope, fewer routing and threshold options, stronger data standards and stronger enforcement.