In early December, DTCC announced that it was significantly reducing the fee for Mutual Fund Services’ Networking service, an industry standard for account reconciliation and dividend processing that allows fund companies and firms to efficiently and cost-effectively track and maintain accurate records of account-level information. Networking is provided by DTCC’s National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) subsidiary.

Effective January 2, 2007, the per-record cost will drop to 15 cents for every 100 records processed from 25 cents, a reduction of 40 percent. Records include activity, dividends, positions, broker conversions, fund conversions, account maintenance, share aging and Standardized Data Reporting (SDR) records.

"Our decision to lower the fee is a direct result of increased usage of Networking. Our volumes rise every year, clear evidence of the industry’s reliance on a service that continues to grow in value," said Ann Bergin, managing director and general manager, Distribution Services. At the end of the third quarter, volumes were up 11 percent over the same time period in 2005.

In February 2006, Networking fees were restructured from a per-account charge to a record-based charge. Previously, fees were based on the number of Networked accounts and position records.

In related news, DTCC also announced fee reductions for Continuous Net Settlement (CNS) and the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS), both provided by NSCC. 

(For more information, visit the NSCC Web site at http://www.nscc.com and read Important Notice A#6346 of November 27, 2006.)