By the end of June, non-public stock and limited companies must select an entity to keep an electronic register of shareholders. Only entities authorized to conduct brokerage activities, such as brokerage offices and houses, will be able to do so. Asseco Poland has developed PROMAK RA - an IT system that will enable to serve these new clients. Asseco's solution is integrated with the Blockchain Platform for the Capital Market provided by the National Depository for Securities (KDPW).

The mandatory dematerialization of non-public companies' shares will apply to all stock companies and limited stock partnerships, regardless of the number of shareholders. In Poland there are about 14,000 such entities. The shares of these companies issued in the form of a paper document will expire in 2021. These companies will have to have an electronic register of shareholders kept by an authorized entity, e.g. a brokerage house. The aim of the changes is to increase the transparency and efficiency of the exchange of information on tax matters in accordance with the standards of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The introduced changes mean a new area of activity for brokerage offices. With a view to adapt them to the new responsibilities, Asseco Poland has developed PROMAK RA - an IT system that enables keeping the register of shareholders. It provides users with an electronic form of all brokerage activities related to the register of shareholders (register of agreements, issues, transfers, blocks of shares, register certificates) as well as handling of rights attached to shares, including dividends. By the end of June 2020, companies must select the entity with which they will conclude an agreement to maintain the e-register.

It is impossible to keep an electronic register without a specially developed IT system. Asseco has been cooperating with the capital market for many years; therefore, with the new responsibilities of brokerage houses in mind, we have created PROMAK RA, which will allow them to offer these services at the highest level of technology and security, said Artur Trunowicz, Director of the Capital Markets Division, Asseco Poland.

PROMAK RA can be implemented both in the system of the existing infrastructure of the financial institution, as well as launched in the cloud-based SaaS formula. This allows for an easy and quick start-up of the solution without the need to engage internal IT resources. Asseco's system is integrated with the Blockchain Platform for the Capital Market developed by KDPW.

The idea of the Blockchain Platform for Capital Market is to provide all its participants with the infrastructure to co-create a uniform, safe and trusted ecosystem of cooperation. It is an open solution, which facilitates the cooperation in the area of innovative post-trading services, said Sławomir Panasiuk, Vice-President of the Management Board of KDPW.

The aim of KDPW in creating the concept of the Platform was to minimize the costs associated with the creation of services in a distributed model. This allows for the creation of specific solutions without the need to incur duplicate expenses on the creation of the network and development of its maintenance processes. The Platform also lowers the threshold of entry into the area of blockchain technology and allows to widely use the potential of the ecosystem created by capital market institutions. The platform was launched in mid-2019. The first service available on the platform is eVoting, which digitizes the voting process at general meetings of companies.

Asseco for the capital market
Asseco Poland is a provider of the PROMAK family of solutions dedicated to the financial sector, which effectively support the work of brokerage houses, banks, depositors and investors, both individual and institutional. The company is also the largest Polish IT company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) and the 6th largest European software producer. It leads international Asseco Group, which operates in over 50 countries and employs over 24,000 people.

KDPW Group
The National Depository for Securities (Krajowy Depozyt Papierów Wartościowych - KDPW) forms a capital group offering highly specialized services for the financial sector, related to the deposit of dematerialized financial instruments, clearing and settlement of transactions, performance of services to holders of securities, data collection and storage. The group consists of KDPW, which acts as the central securities depository (CSD), and the KDPW_CCP clearing house.

Related links

• Więcej informacji o rozwiązaniach PROMAK

In 2019 Asseco Poland conducted 64 R&D projects. The vast majority of them has been financed by the company's own resources, which confirms its high potential in developing and implementing innovations. In addition, it has implemented 4 projects with the use of the EU funds.

Currently, the largest R&D project is the construction of the Asseco Innovation Hub in Rzeszów. This emerging, modern R&D centre will be a place where teams conducting research and development in such innovative fields as artificial intelligence, telemedicine, electromobility, the Internet of Things or drones' control systems will be gathered. Their findings will be used to develop proprietary technologies and IT products for the power industry, telecommunications and media, healthcare, banking, agriculture, enterprises, public administration - said Grzegorz Warzocha, Director of EU Projects Office, Asseco Poland. Projects related to broadly defined IT security will also be developed there. The whole value of the project is over PLN 65 million net (gross is over PLN 80 million), of which over PLN 26 million will be provided by the Ministry of Investment and Development from the Intelligent Development Operational Programme. The implementation of this investment will translate into increased innovation and competitiveness of the whole region - he added.

According to the Rzeczpospolita daily, the innovativeness of Polish companies has been constantly growing. The Central Statistical Office's (GUS) research showed that in 2016-2018 over 26% of manufacturing companies and 21% of service providers carried out research and development activities.

Asseco Enterprise Banking Platform - Digi Trade has been recognized in the category of products using artificial intelligence. The solution is a response to the growing trend of using the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology in Trade Finance. With OCR support, the application enables, among other things, quick and effective recognition of invoices and commercial documents, and simplifies the decision making regarding granted limits.
It is estimated that currently the operating costs of banks in the Trade Finance area amount to USD 12-16 million. Digitization of processes may reduce them to USD 8-13 million in 3-4 years, said Marta Mróz-Sipiora, Product Manager, Asseco Poland. For this cost reduction to be possible, banks will need modern solutions, such as the Asseco Enterprise Banking Platform - Digi Trade, which allows, among others, for secure and fast electronic transfers of orders, interactive communication with bank employees and has individual document templates, she added.
The winners of "Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance Awards 2020" are selected from among banks and service providers from 94 countries.

Fifteen years have passed since Asseco began its international expansion. It was in 2004 when Adam Góral decided to purchase a large block of shares in the Slovakian company Asset Soft. This is how Asseco was created, which is now present in over 50 countries around the world. Jozef Klein, President of Slovakian company Asseco Central Europe and Asseco International, has been involved in the Group's development from the very beginning. On December 12, 2019, official event was held to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Polish-Slovakian cooperation.

It can be said that Asseco is a Polish-Slovakian project that we continue to develop thanks to, among other things, our long-standing cooperation with Josef Klein. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Asseco's entry into international markets. For me, this is still only the beginning, and ahead of us there are still many interesting acquisition projects and opportunities to create innovative products and services, said Adam Góral.

The last days of this year have turned out to be very exciting.
The Management Board of Cyfrowy Polsat has made us a proposal to begin talks on closer cooperation in the area of development and operation of IT systems by Asseco Poland for the Group's individual companies. Asseco Poland has both the products and the substantial potential to lead the Cyfrowy Polsat Group to the best IT solutions, so we were very satisfied with this proposal.

Adam Góral received the title of "Visionary of foreign expansion", awarded in the "Polish Company International Champion 2019" rank, which is organized by PwC and Puls Biznesu. Additionally, Asseco was distinguished in this ranking in the "Investor" category. The awards were received on behalf of the company by Adam Góral, President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland, and Artur Wiza, Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland. The official gala was held on December 3, 2019 in Warsaw.

It is amazing that Poles, despite the fact that they suffered a lot in the previous system and are still unappreciated, are highly motivated to show the world that it is not the place where they were born, but passion and faith that makes it possible to achieve increasingly more successes - said Adam Góral.

The "Polish Company - International Champion" competition promotes the activity of Polish companies on world markets. Thanks to foreign investments and export activity, domestic companies are transformed into global entities, effectively compete on foreign markets and build Poland's brand.

The Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology holds honorary patronage over the plebiscite.

‍