Central securities depository Strate is involved in joint venture talks with US-headquartered shareholder communications group Georgesons.
Strate says the talks are aimed at achieving full conversion of physical scrip into electronic records of share ownership.
Although trades in all listed equities are now settled electronically, shares representing about 26% of the JSE's market capitalisation have yet to be converted into electronic form.
The discussions stem from requests from several listed companies for assistance in tracing shareholders whose whereabouts are unknown.
"This is Georgesons' speciality," says Strate CEO Monica Singer "For many years Georgesons has been cleaning up shareholder registers around the world.
"The closer we get to 100% conversion to electronic share ownership, the more efficient our market will become and the more shareholders will benefit from the demise of anachronistic paper-based share certificates."
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