With the new municipal bond and equities underwriting systems up and running, The Depository Trust Company (DTC) has turned to the final phase of the multi-year underwriting reengineering, which will cover corporate debt issues. Customer testing will begin in the third quarter of 2010, followed by a fourth-quarter transition into production, with the system becoming mandatory January 1, 2011.

Once implemented, this project will complete the upgrade of DTC’s underwriting platform, eliminating the multiple legacy systems that currently support it. This phase of the project will eliminate paper documents and faxes in the underwriting of corporate debt, bringing greater automation, efficiency and cost-savings to the process.

DTC has implemented the new platform, called UW SOURCE, in phases over the past several years, starting with the municipal underwriting system in September 2008, followed by the corporate equities system in October 2009. The rollout of the corporate debt phase in October 2010 will complete the circle for this initiative.

Underwriters that choose to use the new system during the optional period and submit additional information, such as put and call feature information, principal amortization and interest calculation information, will receive a user discount. This discount will continue into 2011.

Beginning January 1, 2011, DTC will levy a penalty of $2,000 per CUSIP on firms that continue to submit information via paper.