Country Business Reports interviews and articles by Discovery Reports www.discoveryreports.com

Last year, the global financial services provider Link Group unveiled a digital corporate registry service which will enhance communications between Hong Kong-listed companies and shareholders.

Link Group will be actively assisting the digitisation of Hong Kong’s predominantly paper-based shareholder registry at a time when compliance pressures are on the rise globally, while companies are also looking to make their processes more efficient. Those companies in the “new economy” are especially focused on these issues.

“Globally, we are seeing an increasingly connected group of institutional and retail shareholders who demand better communication from their investee companies, so they can better exercise their total shareholder rights,” says Lysa McKenna, CEO, corporate markets, Asia-Pacific for Link Group. “This should encourage better corporate governance and improved shareholder engagement by listed companies, and help these companies comply with the regulatory compliance pressures they face.”

McKenna says Hong Kong’s buoyant fundraising market, which saw more than 200 company listings in the past year, was a major drawcard. “Hong Kong is the market everybody needs to be in,” McKenna says.

The services now offered by Link Market Services will help companies foster better shareholder engagement and perform registry services such as dividend payments and annual general meetings (AGMs). It comes under the platform miraqle, which includes Link Group’s other digital products already in operation in Hong Kong. Link Group has operated two other investor relations services geared towards equity and bonds in the city since 2008 – Orient Capital and D.F. King.