A FTSE100 Company Secretary writes...
What software platform (if any) do you use for tracking Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) compliance and director share dealing? If you use a commercially available system, how do you find it – and would you recommend it?
We use Insider track, having carried out a tender a couple of years ago to move us away from manual spreadsheets and make us more compliant. We also reduced the size of our PDMR list and Permanent Insider List. We find Insider track good in some regards but bad in others. Good for getting large groups to insert and keep up to date their personal info. Good to automate lists and closed period notifications etc. Bad in that the software is clunky in some regards when you are using it and our team find you need almost to be able to code to use simple functions. We did try before this an EQ product, since they are our registrar. That was absolutely hopeless, like a test piece of SW. So I’d do a rigorous tender and see who are best in the market now.
We’re using InsiderHub. It’s a little clunky, to be honest, but likely to get easier to use as we get used to it. I’m not yet convinced that it’s more efficient that our previous process which was a simple spreadsheet system.
We have very recently also moved to InsiderList – which we signed up to via our registrars, Equiniti. Implementation was relatively easy and it was up and running in a few weeks. We have not included the director share dealings element at the moment, but seems to be working well for tracking MAR compliance – it has massively helped automate manual processes as well giving project teams greater visibility of others included on projects.
We recently moved to InsiderList. It means that some processes have now been automated (eg clearance to deal requests) but at the end of the day it is a tool to help you manage and oversee compliance. So far so good but early to say. It means a big step up from our previous (more manual) platform.