Many issuing companies tend to hold annual general meetings (AGMs) in May. This year, some have decided to postpone their AGMs as a result of COVID-19. According to statistics compiled by TDCC, more than 90% of listed companies have scheduled AGMs for late May and beyond. While the coronavirus seems to have been contained in Taiwan, people should remain cautious, and attending a shareholder meeting in person is not something advisable as it may disrupt Taiwan’s streak of zero infection.

So, as a shareholder, what are your options if you want to have a say in company affairs but don’t want to expose yourself to cluster infection risks by being in an indoor environment? The Financial Supervisory Commission has made e-voting one of the mandatory voting methods that all TWSE- and TPEx-listed companies should provide. Investors can now exercise their voting rights via the TDCC e-Passbook application, brokerages’ order placement applications, or TDCC’s Stockvote website. The validity of voting through the aforementioned channels is the same as voting in person at a physical meeting according to the Company Act. More importantly, e-voting is open for almost a month, so investors will enjoy more flexibility in terms of the time of voting.

TDCC Senior Executive Vice President Gloria Ching recommends investors to vote with the e-Passbook app, which is used by more than a million people, providing comprehensive asset management services applicable to securities, fixed income and funds. Just go to the main page of the app, tap “My Asset,” click on the “E-voting” button and you’re good to go—no double sign-in required. The “E-stocksearch” is also a commonly-used function, which allows investors to look for major announcements, company financial results, and shareholding structure, which is unique to the app. The E-stocksearch function helps investors monitor the holdings of major shareholders and understand the reasons of share price swings.

How do you make sure you don’t miss notifications of shareholder meetings? Senior Executive Vice President Ching recommends the most popular push message function of the e-Passbook app. Push messages will be sent to you proactively by the app to remind you of the dates of AGMs, shareholder gifts and ex-right/ ex-dividend information based on your investment portfolio. Once you have exercised your voting rights, the app will send another push message telling you the when, where and how to collect your shareholder gifts.

Please contact any of the brokerages you trade with if you haven’t installed the TDCC e-Passbook app. We invite you to join us in contributing to the government’s efforts to combat COVID-19 and helping extend Taiwan’s streak of zero infection.