The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has launched a service aimed at helping financial firms and other market participants comply with a new January 2011 regulatory mandate requiring the reporting of cost basis information to investors and the federal government.
DTCC says its enhanced Cost Basis Reporting Service (CBRS) solves the technology and reporting challenges faced by the industry in meeting a key element of The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which requires financial intermediaries to pass cost basis information among one another when assets move among firms.
The service acts as a central communications hub that transmits cost basis information among broker/dealers, transfer agents, issuers, mutual funds and custodian banks in a secure electronic environment. DTCC says it eliminates the need for market participants to undertake the often expensive and time-consuming task of establishing potentially hundreds of new connections to transmit this information.
The CBRS platform promotes standardization and centralization while also mitigating operational risk for our customers, reducing the cost of compliance and improving overall processing efficiencies, says Susan Cosgrove, DTCCs managing director for clearance and settlement/equities. As financial firms face heightened regulatory reporting requirements, were continuing to work closely with our customers to identify and develop solutions that will allow them to meet these new responsibilities in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.