The development was carried out as a joint project between Statoil, VPS and DNB (Statoil’s agent) where the objective was to convince as many shareholders as possible to select dividend shares through electronic communication.
The scrip dividend programme is a very important move for Statoil as it is expected to strengthen their financial robustness at a time of low prices for oil and gas. With quarterly dividend payments over a 2-year period, it is therefore absolutely essential that the interaction with the large quantity of shareholders together with the dividend distribution was developed through reliable, user friendly and efficient IT solutions with high output and resilience.
VPS completed the developments in accordance with the joint project plan and the solution was subject to a comprehensive stress test prior to the first dividend distribution of the Statoil dividend programme being carried out and paid on 24 June – according to expectations. The experience proved that the IT solution performed in accordance with the applicable VPS quality requirements and that dividend distributions went smoothly. It is with great pleasure we announce that Statoil is very pleased with the delivery and they report that the project has met the requests.
Next phase
In agreement with Statoil, who would like to contribute to the standardisation and industry solutions in the Norwegian capital market, VPS is planning to launch a generic solution for scrip dividend programmes for other issuer clients at VPS. The solution will be based on the same platform as the Statoil programme and will be subject to the same quality standards.
The solution we designed for Statoil has many features that you can read more about here