Disclosure of Interest

On a daily basis, Financial Institutions need to make an assessment as to whether they are a signficant shareholder in any listed company within financial markets covered by various regulators. Whether an institution is a significant shareholder or not, is assessed based on a sum of the number of shares held (stocks, plus depository receipts, convertible bonds, options holdings, ETFs and Index where any constituent has more than a 30% weighting, etc.), then divided by the shares outstanding – if the total holdings are above a regulatory defined threshold, then a significant shareholder report needs to be filed. The initial project aimed to resolve an audit point with the Hong Kong regulator, that needed to be resolved within nine months – a particularly aggressive timeline considering the technical challenges in place. The Disclosure of Interest project then required an extension to 12 other APAC countries.

Credit Risk, Market Risk, Global Markets, Compliance, Legal

Disclosure of Interest reporting is critically important for financial institutions because it promotes transparency, supports market integrity, and ensures regulatory compliance. These reports make it clear who holds substantial influence over listed companies, preventing the covert accumulation of control that could distort prices or mislead investors. DOI filings also protect investors by providing insight into potential changes in company ownership or strategy, enabling more informed decision-making. For regulators, these disclosures are vital for monitoring compliance with market conduct rules, takeover codes, and foreign investment restrictions. Internally, these processes support risk management and help maintain the institution’s standing with local regulators across jurisdictions. Failing to comply can result in legal penalties, trading restrictions, and reputational damage.

DOI reporting promotes market transparency, and ensures legal and regulatory compliance. It prevents market manipulation by deterring “creeping takeovers” with transparency of holdings to other shareholders, the company or the market.

SQL | Excel | Confluence | JIRA

Lead Business Analyst:

• Collaborated with Compliance to define the set of Business Requirements, and definition of what a share holding is
• Wrote the Business Requirements documentation for the end-to-end process in Confluence, that were then converted to Functional Specifications in JIRA
• Worked with Python development to implement the Disclosure of Interest extract, enrichment, transformation and aggregation
• Worked with C# development to create a Web-app within our “Risk Navigator” application to enable users to view the significant shareholdings
• Documentation of the process for Production Support to inherit the process for ongoing BAU