A#

5656

P&S #:

5226
  

DATE:

August 1, 2003
  

TO:

ALL PARTICIPANTS
  

ATTENTION:

MANAGING PARTNER / OFFICER
OPERATIONS PARTNER / OFFICER
MANAGER CUSTOMER ACCOUNT TRANSFER DEPARTMENT
MANAGER MARGIN DEPARTMENT
MANAGER DATA PROCESSING DEPARTMENT
MANAGER MUTUAL FUNDS OPERATIONS
MANAGER CASHIERS DEPARTMENT

  
SUBJECT: ACATS PARTICIPANT INFORMATION AND EFFICENCY REPORT (PIER) ENHANCEMENT FOR BANK TRANSFERS

I. ACATS PIER ENHANCEMENTS

National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) in its continuing effort to enhance and bring greater efficiency to the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS) announces changes to the ACATS PIER reports. Currently ACATS PIER contains information on Broker-to-Broker ACATS transfers only. This enhancement will expand ACATS PIER Reports to include statistics for Bank-to-Broker, Broker-to-Bank or Bank-to-Bank ACATS transfers. The above enhancement will be effective with July 2003 ACATS activity that will be reflected on PIER in the first week of August 2003.

II. PIER ENHANCEMENTS DETAILS

The new ACATS PIER section will be titled “Free Delivery” and will reflect ACATS Transfer statistics when a bank or trust company is either the receiver or deliverer on an ACATS transfer. Broker-to-Broker ACATS transfer statistics will continue to be reflected in the existing ACATS PIER Broker-to-Broker section and will not be modified.

The new ACATS PIER section is intended to assist ACATS Participants in identifying and controlling their Banks in ACATS transfer activity. An ACATS participant who makes transfers with banks through ACATS will now have PIER reflect transfer statistics in the new “Free Delivery” section. A copy of the new Free Delivery ACATS PIER section is attached for your reference.


ACATS Participants who are classified as “brokers” in ACATS could have two ACATS PIER sections. The Broker-to-Broker section will be populated with their ACATS Broker-to-Broker transfer activity when the receiver and deliverer are both brokers and the Free Delivery section will be populated with their ACATS transfer activity only when a bank or trust company is the receiver or deliverer.

A bank or trust company who is classified as a bank in ACATS would only have data in the Free Delivery component because these firms would always have a bank or trust company as a receiver or deliverer on an ACATS transfer and therefore would only have the “Free Delivery” section populated with ACATS transfer data.

The new ACATS PIER “Free Delivery” section will contain the same three components as in the current ACATS PIER Broker-to-Broker section. The three components are:

  1. ACATS (Free Delivery) – contains general ACATS Transfer information segregated into receiving and delivering firm statistics.

  2. The Top Ten Firms You – contains ACATS transfer statistics of the top ten firms your firm receives from and delivers to.

  3. Top Five Reject Reasons For – contains ACATS Transfer reject statistics of the top reject reasons for incoming and outgoing ACATS transfers.

There will be no modifications to the ACATS Fund/SERV PIER section. The ACATS Fund/SERV PIER section currently reflects ACATS transfer statistics for all ACATS Participants (Brokers and Banks) and will continue to do so.

III. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

A copy of this Important Notice can be obtained from NSCC’s web site http://www.nscc.com in the Important Notice section. ACATS Important Notices can also be obtained from NSCC’s ACATS web site http://acats.nscc.com in the Important Notice section. If you have any questions regarding these ACATS modifications, please contact your DTCC Relationship Manager at (212) 855-4155, or the undersigned at (212) 855-8024.


Robert M. Yodice
Director, Product Marketing and Development