Corporate action event capture is the first operational step in corporate action processing: finding out that an issuer has announced an event and recording its terms accurately. Firms receive the details of each corporate action announcement from several places at once, including the issuer or its agent, stock exchanges, central securities depositories, custodians and a commercial corporate action data feed.
Capture teams therefore compare the sources, resolve differences and build a single validated record, often called the golden copy, in line with the firm's golden source data rules. The record holds the event type, the security identified by its ISIN, the key dates, the rate, the options available and any deadlines. Errors at this stage flow into every later step, so most firms treat event capture as a high-risk control point and automate it as far as possible.