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DTCC Expands Fund/SERV Support to Cross-Border Funds and Their Distributors

New York, November 21, 2002 - The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) introduced on November 18 the first in a series of new mutual funds processing capabilities to support the growing demand from fund companies, broker/dealers, banks and other distributors involved in marketing cross border investment funds.

Leveraging its Fund/SERV^sm platform (the industry standard for processing U.S. fund transactions), DTCC, through its subsidiary, National Securities Clearing Corporation, will offer customers enhancements that eliminate many of the costly manual processes that currently exist in the marketing and processing of the funds based in the European cross-border centres of Luxembourg and Dublin.

"We are increasingly being approached by firms in Europe and elsewhere in the world that recognize how DTCC has automated and centralized the trading environment for U.S. funds and distributors. We are now beginning to create similar benefits for cross-border funds, enabling our customers to expand their businesses with greater efficiency," said Ann Bergin, managing director, Mutual Fund Services, DTCC.

These new capabilities and others to follow are designed to provide seamless end-to-end processing, reporting and reconciliation of cross-border fund trades, including the ability to handle Euro-denominated transactions. The enhancements were developed with ongoing guidance from a 34-member advisory committee composed of both U.S.- and non-U.S.-headquartered firms with significant business in cross-border funds.

"These firms and many others are looking to us for solutions that will help them expand their distribution and significantly reduce processing costs," Bergin explained. "The enhancements that we've made to Fund/SERV, as a result of the committee's contributions, are important first steps in providing our customers with a continuous series of new services that expand connectivity between investment funds and their distributors."

The enhancements being introduced include:

• Future trade dates: A new indicator allows firms to submit a trade date for situations where the processing date of the firm differs from the trade date. The feature will be helpful for periodic-valued funds, where pre-notification is often required, and for daily-valued funds based in Luxembourg or Dublin, where the fund cutoff time and processing cycle often make it impractical for the New York processing date to be the same as the fund's trade date.

• Multi-Currency Trading and External Settlement: Funds will be allowed to accept and confirm trades of European security types in euros, with settlement outside of NSCC. Offshore U.S. dollar and non-U.S. dollar funds have been isolated by NSCC, and special processing identifiers have been assigned to such funds.

• Trading/Settlement Schedule Updates: Funds will be able to add, change or delete their own currency and country lists so that Fund/SERV and Profile can accurately reflect different trade and settlement dates, including those impacted by fund and currency holiday schedules.

Peter Marshall, vice president, Mutual Fund Services for NSCC, said, "Now that this first system release is available, we will be coordinating closely with our advisory committee to continue analysis, identification and agreement on subsequent releases, and there will be further releases throughout 2003. We're committed to continuing work in the European markets to address more of the specific issues in cross-border trading of funds."

Fund/SERV handles more than 300,000 transactions daily on average, worth more than $6 billion. Charges to use Fund/SERV are 17.5 cents per transaction, the lowest in the world for such mutual fund processing. A growing percentage of those transactions have been from European cross-border funds seeking an automated processing solution to connecting with their distributors.

About DTCC
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), with operating facilities in multiple locations in the U.S. and overseas, is a holding company for six subsidiary businesses - a depository and five clearing corporations - as well as the co-owner with Thomson Financial of a global joint venture called Omgeo. Through its subsidiaries, DTCC provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities, corporate debt, municipal debt, government securities and mortgage-backed securities in the U.S., and emerging markets debt trades globally. It is also a leading clearinghouse for mutual funds and insurance products, linking funds and carriers with distribution networks. In addition, DTCC provides custody and asset servicing for more than two million securities from the U.S. and 84 other countries. For more information on DTCC, see www.dtcc.com.