# Verify shareholder proxy votes digitally

> In May 2018, Banco Santander and Broadridge Financial Solutions piloted a distributed ledger solution to record shareholder votes at an annual general meeting. During the meeting, a digital shadow register ran in parallel to track proxy voting transparently. This initiative demonstrated the potential of digital ledgers to enhance traceability and operational efficiency in corporate governance.

**Sector:** Quaternary sector · **Industry:** Risk management and corporate governance · **Organisation:** Banco Santander, Broadridge Financial Solutions · **Maturity level:** Pilot

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/banco-santander-aktionaersabstimmungen-hauptversammlungen-digital-verifizieren

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Pilot
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

Banco Santander and Broadridge Financial Solutions demonstrated in May 2018 the practical applicability of distributed ledger technology in proxy voting at a general meeting. In traditional proxy voting processes, votes pass through complex chains of custodian banks, central securities depositories and brokers, often leading to a lack of transparency and delays. The pilot showed that distributed ledger technology can act as a digital shadow register to significantly increase transparency and efficiency in voting processes.

The joint project by Banco Santander and Broadridge Financial Solutions was implemented during Santander’s ordinary general meeting in Spain. Broadridge provided a DLT solution for which the company had previously obtained a US patent for proxy voting. The system ran in parallel to the conventional systems of the meeting and recorded shareholders’ votes in an immutable digital shadow register. The aim was to verify whether a blockchain-based architecture can ensure data integrity in proxy voting and reduce the manual reconciliation required between financial intermediaries. The successful completion of the pilot demonstrated that voting rights can be processed efficiently, promptly and verifiably via a distributed ledger.

## Benefits

- Reduction of reconciliation efforts between financial intermediaries
- Near real-time insight into voting rights status for the issuer
- Lower risk of errors in complex voting rights chains
- Greater certainty about the actual counting of one’s own vote
- Increased transparency in the voting process
- Immutable documentation of all proxy votes
- Faster processing of voting rights notifications
- Relief from manual list management and validation
- Automated protocol creation for audit purposes

## Challenges

- Willingness of all involved intermediaries to jointly use the ledger
- Regulatory recognition of purely digital shadow registers
- Harmonisation with national stock corporation law requirements
- Interface connection to historically grown legacy systems
- Need for technical training in ledger management

## Technology foundation

Permissioned Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based on a proprietary Broadridge prototype for proxy voting, enabling tamper-proof and auditable recording of voting rights data.

## Sources

- [Santander and Broadridge Complete a First Practical Use of Blockchain for Investor Voting at an Annual General Meeting](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/santander-and-broadridge-complete-a-first-practical-use-of-blockchain-for-investor-voting-at-an-annual-general-meeting-300649733.html)
- [Broadridge awarded blockchain patent for proxy voting](https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/32090/broadridge-awarded-blockchain-patent-for-proxy-voting)