A#

5669

P&S #:

5239
   

DATE:

August 28, 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
   

FROM:

 Bill J. Kapogiannis
   
SUBJECT: ACATS Enhancements - Fall 2003 REMINDER NOTICE

I.        ACATS Enhancements

NSCC’s ACATS Important Notice A5616, P&S 5186 dated May 20, 2003 and Important Notice A5614, P&S 5224 dated July 31, 2003, described the enhancements to ACATS and the participant testing schedule for the ACATS enhancements scheduled for implementation in the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2003.  NSCC’s Fund/SERV Important Notice A5627, P&S 5197 dated June 10, 2003 and Important Notice A5664, P&S 5234 dated August 14, 2003, described the ACATS Fund/SERV enhancements and testing specifications.  The enhancements are as follows: 

A.              Add new data fields to Mutual Fund Registration (FR) record.

Effective Monday, September 22, 2003 NSCC will be adding new values to existing fields on the ACATS Mutual Fund Registration (FR) record.  The two new values are Accrual Dollar Amount and Accrual Dollar Amount Indicator.  These two new fields will be optional.  These changes require modifications to both the fixed and variable length input and output file layouts.  There will also be changes made to the Fund Registration input screen on PC Web Direct.  Participant testing of changes to NSCC’s ACATS system for the Accrual changes on the Fund Registration (FR) record and output records began Monday, August 25, 2003.

Please note the record length of the Fixed Output Position (P) File, Autoroute product 02090724, is being increased.  The increase of this record is mandatory for all fixed length file format users even though these fields are optional.  All ACATS participants who currently use the fixed length ACATS Position file must increase the record length.

B.       Reduce pend status days on Mutual Fund Re-Registrations through ACATS Fund/SERV from seven (7) to four (4) days.

Effective Monday, September 22, 2003 NSCC will be reducing the number of days that an outstanding Mutual Fund Re-Registration pends in the system.  In the current environment, Mutual Fund Re-Registrations which have not been acknowledged or rejected by the fund, pend in the system for up to seven (7) business days.  After the seven-day pend period has been reached, with no response from the fund, the re-registration request is purged from the system and is treated as a fund rejected item.  The enhancement will reduce the number of days an item pends in the system from seven (7) days to four (4) days.

Please note any ACATS Fund/SERV transfers still pending on Friday, September 19th which are in pend status day four (4), five (5), six (6) or seven (7) and are not acted upon by the fund for processing on Monday, September 22nd, will be purged from the Fund/SERV system and ACATS.  ACATS will report five day or older items not acted on as fund rejected items and these will appear on the ACATS Fund/Serv Statistical Report, AutoRoute #02090720 (Variable) and #02090726 (Fixed) on Monday, September 22nd.   

C.       Add transfer date field to the Mutual Fund Clean-up functionality.

Effective Monday, October 27, 2003 NSCC will add a new data field to the Mutual Fund Clean-up (MFC) functionality.  A new data field defined as the transfer date the fund re- registration was completed at the fund will be a required field on the Mutual Fund Clean-up record.  These changes require modifications to both the fixed and variable length input and output file layouts.  There will also be changes made to the MFC input screen on PC Web Direct.  Participants can begin testing the enhancements to the Mutual Fund Clean-up functionality on Tuesday, September 23, 2003. 

II.        Additional Information

Complete versions of all ACATS file formats can be obtained from NSCC’s ACATS web site http://acats.nscc.com and NSCC’s file formats web site http://formats.nscc.com in the appropriate ACATS section.  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) 855-5667.

Bill J. Kapogiannis

Product Manager

Product Marketing & Development