South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service is upgrading its Open DART service to help domestic and overseas institutional investors analyze agenda items more quickly ahead of annual shareholder meetings.
The FSS said on the 13th that it plans to extend Open DART, which has until now covered major filings such as annual business reports and reports on material matters, to documents related to shareholder meetings. Open DART is a service that opens up disclosure data from the electronic disclosure system (DART) to outside users.
The aim is to let institutional investors review meeting agendas thoroughly and exercise their voting rights without being pressed for time. The FSS plans to provide basic information on listed companies' shareholder meetings as well as summaries of every item put to a vote. For major items that draw strong investor interest and are tabled in large numbers, it will also provide detailed information allowing users to grasp the specific content of each proposal.
An FSS official said major items would include the appointment of directors, approval of compensation limits for directors and auditors, amendments to articles of incorporation, and approval of financial statements, including dividends. The agency plans to complete system development and revise filing formats by the end of this year so the service can be used at annual shareholder meetings held from next year.
The FSS will also overhaul the XBRL system, the international computer language standard applied to financial statement disclosures, ahead of the adoption of the new international accounting standard IFRS 18 next year. The goal is to create an environment during next year in which users can extract only the information they want for in-depth analysis, by progressively making data from key footnotes, such as those on tangible assets, available on Open DART.
An FSS official said the agency plans to build a foundation for AI-friendly use of disclosure data so that users can search and analyze filings with AI tools, as the use of AI technology grows across sectors.