The 2026 AGM season was the busiest and most exacting in Proxymity’s history. In this article, we revisit our biggest wins, the value our solutions have driven for clients and look at the complexities the proxy chain presented this season.  

Before we get to the season itself, let’s take a step back to look at what the first half of 2026 delivered. 

Heightened momentum for our products and solutions

The first half of 2026 saw significant product momentum across the Proxymity network.

Expanding our network with the biggest names

• BNY went live with Vote Connect Global across more than 100 markets, and with Vote Connect Total in Germany and Italy

• State Street continued its rollout with 77 markets now active on Vote Connect Global

• Deutsche Bank went live with Vote Connect Total in the United States 

• Citi launched Vote Connect Total in Norway and Finland

• J.P.Morgan has chosen Proxymity for global shareholder disclosure processing across 40 markets

• Electronic voting went live in Germany via Breukel and in Spain via Santander, two markets that have historically operated on paper-based or manual processes

• Proxymity went live in Italy, delivering post-meeting vote confirmations for the first time in the market and giving issuers and investors visibility of outcomes that previously did not exist at this level. 

• A new Class Actions service was launched in collaboration with FRT, extending the value of the Proxymity network beyond the proxy voting event.  

• MiKaDiv reporting solutions became available via a partnership with TaxTec and Label. 

• Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) partnered with Proxymity to provide cross-border straight through processing (STP) voting services 

• And M1 selected FIS Proxy Voting by Proxymity as part of the FIS Asset Servicing Management Suite

Investment and recognition from the market

• Euroclear, one of the world’s leading central securities depositories and financial infrastructure providers, invested in Proxymity, joining our consortium of the world’s leading financial institutions managing over 290 trillion dollars in assets under custody

• To top it all off, we were also named “Fintech of the Year” at the Global Custodian Leaders in Custody Awards 2026, winning the title in both the London and Singapore awards

Each connection, adoption and market launch gets us closer to our vision of true end-to-end real-time connectivity globally. The 2026 season has shown what this looks like in practice.

Our busiest season yet: around 2X the volume

The scale of this season was unprecedented,  

Proxymity processed millions of ballots and votes across peak season (April to June), with volumes running at over 80% higher than the whole of 2025, making it the strongest season in Proxymity’s history. 

Our operations team also processed thousands of vote instructions received after the deadline, which would have otherwise gone uncounted. This would not have been possible through manual processing alone.   

Throughout this, we maintained an error rate of just 0.001% of voted ballots, and as volumes continue to grow at this pace, our ability to maintain that level of accuracy reflects the strength of the infrastructure we have built.  

That said, we recognise that any incident, however small, can have real consequences for investors and issuers. We remain steadfast in our mission to make the process simpler, more transparent and more efficient for the entire ecosystem.

What the season revealed about the voting chain

As volumes grew, so did visibility, which opened up conversations about structural challenges that exist across the proxy voting chain. 

Cross-border holdings represent one of the most persistent of these. Every additional layer in a cross-border custody chain removes time from the voting window available to the investor, and the longer the chain, the more compressed that window becomes.

The dual-provider model adds a further layer of complexity. Where investors retain a relationship with a legacy provider alongside a digital provider like Proxymity, that provider can apply the earliest available deadline to all ballots in a given market or a default deadline, which may not be manageable depending on the specific place of settlement, regardless of where each holding actually settles. 

As Proxymity’s network has grown, so has the number and diversity of sub-custodians we are connected to. The scale and real-time nature of our approach represent a significant operational shift for many intermediaries, one that requires adaptation across systems, processes and deadlines that were built for a different model.  

We recognise that, and it has directly shaped how we build. Over the past year we have invested in new features and functionality specifically designed to meet the needs of these intermediaries. 

These challenges are not new, but greater connectivity and transparency across the chain is making them easier to identify, understand and address, and is giving us a clearer picture of where the infrastructure needs to go next.

What Proxymity’s experts have to say about the season

Nothing at Proxymity would be possible without the people behind it. Being at the centre of the busiest season in our history was a significant operational undertaking. We asked Thuruvanraj from the APAC team and Olga from the customer onboarding team to share their thoughts on how the season went, what processes were in place and how our products have made it easier for our clients and their clients.

Onboarding at scale: building the foundation before the season begins

In customer onboarding, the season begins long before the AGM peak. Olga McGregor, Senior Manager of Customer Onboarding, has spent over five years at Proxymity watching the scale and complexity of what the team manages shift significantly. This season tested that experience in new ways.

“Our season starts well before the AGM peak. People think of onboarding as a point-in-time event, but it is really continuous. The preparation for what happened this season started years ago.”

The US launch was the most demanding moment. A new market, a new process, and hundreds of thousands of positions migrated in a compressed timeframe.

“We had people based in the UK working on US time, checking components overnight for anything that could go wrong. We did not anticipate every issue. But we caught a lot of them before they became a problem because of the monitoring we had in place. We came out of it with a few scratches, but we made it.”

That monitoring capability reflects a broader shift in what is now possible.

“Five years ago, there were things we simply could not do. The mindset has completely shifted, from ‘that’s not possible’ to ‘give me a little time and we’ll find a way.’ When we need something specific, we go to the reporting team and within a couple of hours we have a solution.”

Looking ahead, Olga’s focus is on deadlines. Some of the rules governing how deadlines are calculated need to updated. The team has grown since the last season, and so has what it can offer. In certain markets, Proxymity already gives clients the market deadline itself. Extending that further, market by market, is where the next phase of improvement is being built.

What APAC’s expansion revealed

In APAC, the season had its own dimension of complexity. Thuruvanraj S, Co-Head Proxy Voting Operations – APAC, led the expansion of our Kuala Lumpur operations into new markets, building the team’s capability across new platforms and processing environments before going through their first full-scale AGM peak. 

“We started with Hong Kong in 2025, so we had some idea of what to expect there. But then this season we had markets like Taiwan and Japan on top, both new markets for us, with their own nuances: the complexity of language for Japan, direct market execution for Taiwan. And while all of that was happening, we were also absorbing the Australia operations migration into Kuala Lumpur. Everything landed at the same time. The team were working overtime to make sure not a single vote got missed.” 

The technology shift Proxymity has delivered in these markets is concrete. In Hong Kong, where the market deadline falls at 4:15 in the afternoon, clients now vote against the market deadline itself rather than a conservative cut-off set days before. 

“Historically, clients would get their cut-off days before the market deadline. That was just accepted as normal. What we’re doing is giving clients a deadline on the same day as the market deadline. That is not common in these markets, and it is only possible because of the real-time infrastructure we have in place. It signals what is possible across the rest of APAC.”

What comes next, and how we’re building for it

A season like this raises the bar. The proxy voting infrastructure that serves investors, custodians and issuers in the years ahead will need to meet a higher standard of transparency, resilience and connectivity than the industry has previously dealt with. That is the standard we are building to. 

The rest of 2026 brings Australia’s main AGM season, continued network expansion, and further product releases.  

The work done this season lays the foundation for what comes next, and we are going into it with a clearer picture of what needs to improve and how to get there. Every season teaches us something, and this one more than most.