This year’s shareholder meeting landscape is particularly different. Many companies have postponed their Annual General Meetings (AGM) due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. To reduce infection from physical contact between humans, most investors have also chosen to join through a convenient system, e-voting. The trend has boosted e-voting to more than 60% in AGMs for the first time.

Responses to COVID-19 have helped accelerate the digital development of the capital market. According to the e-voting statistics of general meetings released by the Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC), e-voting accounts for as high as 62.7% of the overall voting method of the 1,793 issuing companies, an increase of 6.6% compared to last year. The improvement is indeed a morale booster for the digitization efforts of Taiwan’s capital market. Besides, the results see a 15% jump in ballots cast through e-voting as the cumulative total of ballots reached 9.11 million and represented 364.8 billion shares. The e-voting platform also observed up to 97.8% of foreign shareholding in e-voting. The above data shows that e-voting certainly plays an important role in general meetings.

According to Zhen-Zhen Huang, TDCC Senior Vice President of Issuer Services, the e-voting platform has continued to provide a variety of additional services in response to FinTech advancement since it was established in 2009. In 2021, the TDCC also launched the Platform for Shareholder Meetings with Video Conferencing as Assistance, a brand new system aligned with international practices. The TDCC will keep optimizing the new platform and help it keep up with regulatory amendments. Before shareholder meetings, all shareholders can conduct e-voting either through the upgraded ePASSBOOK APP and securities trading APPs on their mobile phones, or log into the Stockvote website on computers. Other than that, investors can also watch live streaming shareholder meetings, send in real-time questions, and cast their ballots online by completing pre-meeting registration. The virtual participation approach brings issuers and shareholders closer, further fulfills shareholder activism, improves Taiwan’s transparency in corporate governance, and fosters a positive environment for the capital market.