The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) today issued best practices for testing and implementation of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) New Issue Information and Dissemination Service (NIIDS) for underwriters of municipal securities. This system allows underwriters to send new issue information electronically to DTCC, as well as any follow-up adjusted information.
The securities industry has invested significant resources over an extended period of time to bring NIIDS to its current status of being available for testing. The Best Practices are designed to ensure a reasonable transition and an effective implementation of this very important industry change.
SIFMA’s recommendations include:
1. Members submitting new issue underwriting information to NIIDS via a third-party vendor should complete third-party vendor testing through NIIDS by July 28, 2008.
2. Members submitting new issue underwriting information via the NIIDS Web Platform or the NIIDS Spreadsheet Upload Feature should complete NIIDS testing by August 8, 2008.
3. Once members have successfully completed all required testing, it is strongly recommended that they submit new issue underwriting information through the NIIDS Production System.
The full Best Practices document is available at the following link: http://www.sifma.org/capital_markets/docs/BestPracticesNIIDSTesting-Implementation.pdf.
In addition, SIFMA is sponsoring a number of regional seminars on NIIDS testing and implementation. The remaining seminars will be held on June 18 in Chicago and on June 24 in New York. More information on the seminars is available at the following link: http://events.sifma.org/2008/niids/event.aspx?id=4970.