South African central securities depository (CSD) Strate has entered into an agreement with Nasdaq to deliver a new blockchain solution to bring electronic voting to the country’s capital markets.

Strate intends to leverage the solution, in conjunction with key stakeholders in the market, to improve voting efficiencies and increase shareholder participation in South Africa. It aims to provide shareholders with an easy, user-friendly and secure tool for voting remotely.

According to the official release, the solution is based on the successful proof of concept (PoC) developed for Nasdaq’s Estonia market. In addition, Strate will contribute to the ongoing market development of e-Voting technology.

The solution will bring a number of benefits to shareholders, issuers and proxies, including remote participation and proxy assignment; secure identification of shareholders; and easy access to information. Powered by blockchain technology, it will save the data in an immutable ledger, keep full track record of assigned proxies and casted votes, offer real-time access to voting results with full transparency and auditability, and end-to-end management of general meetings from announcement to results.

“We are very excited about our initiative with Nasdaq and what it means for the South African financial markets,” said Tanya Knowles, Managing Executive of Fractal Solutions, a division of Strate. “The solution aims to service our clients’ needs across the market from transfer secretaries to issuers, custodians, asset managers and those holding shares in listed companies. Given that it is an end-to-end solution – from the time a meeting is announced and all the way through the voting process to the publishing of results – it means that all stakeholders will truly benefit within the process.”

For CSDs, exchanges and market infrastructures, it will help reduce complexity through end-to-end general meeting administration in a single solution, enhance insight through real-time data access to securities holders, holdings and votes and ability to view full voting history on a single account; provide a fully auditable view of actions recorded in the immutable ledger along with key blockchain features such as speed, safety, and security; and a standard Application Programme Interface.

“By leveraging blockchain, we are able to reduce friction in the voting and proxy assignment process and also ensure that all information is transparent to stakeholders when required and with the proper security, governance and risk procedures in place,” said Lars Ottersgård, Executive Vice President and Head of Market Technology, Nasdaq.