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DTCC Calls for Global Dialogue on Business Continuity Planning

Major Progress in U.S. Outlined in Report to the Industry

New York, March 4, 2004 - The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) today issued a report to the industry on its business continuity planning, detailing a number of sweeping changes it has made and calling for a global dialogue on ways to ensure the survivability and resilience of market infrastructure organizations.

 The changes made in its business continuity plans by DTCC, the world's largest clearance and settlement organization, are designed to ensure the safety and security of its clearing and settlement operations in the U.S. The report documents the many significant changes DTCC has made to its systems since 9/11 to ensure the integrity of its systems and operational capabilities and strengthen the safety of its employees.

Among the changes DTCC has made is a technological breakthrough in asynchronous data transmission and storage over long distances (more than 1,000 miles) and wide decentralization of both DTCC's operations and data centers. It also includes enhancements to its communications network with the thousands of banks, broker/dealers, mutual fund companies, insurance carriers, financial planners, issuing/paying agents and transfer agents who interact with DTCC on a daily basis.

"We believe it is important to share DTCC's experience and the practical knowledge it has gained from the past two years to encourage wider and more informed discussion and focus on business continuity planning throughout the industry," said Jill M. Considine, DTCC chairman and CEO. "We hope this will help us, our participants and others in the market in their own thinking about these problems."

Among the key results presented in the report are:

• Diversification of Operations: The broader diversification of data centers and operations personnel outside the New York City region, and continued plans to further diversify operational personnel to a new site well away from the area. DTCC's upgraded data and communications network allows data to easily flow to any of its multiple centers at any time, and all systems can be operated remotely by other data centers.

• New Data Replication Technology: Development of automated, fast, data mirroring that allows large volumes of data to be replicated at distances beyond 1,000 miles.

• Real-Time Processes: Implementation of real-time straight through processing capabilities that would minimize or eliminate the loss of key data in the event of a major disaster or event.

• Reinforced Communications: Enhancement of its existing communications network, now called SMART, to extend its more resilient, self-healing capabilities and the ability to seamlessly use any of multiple data centers for processing. It also has been provided greater capacity to handle all of its clearing corporations' data as well as all depository data. Participants' network connections are registered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for priority restoration.

• Upgraded Employee Safety/Crisis Planning Procedures: Upgraded employee safety procedures and crisis planning, including the regular rotation of senior executives to locations outside New York City headquarters and establishment of crisis teams at the company's various locations.

• New Cyber Response Teams: Improved cyber response teams, procedures and safeguards.

The key technological breakthroughs DTCC made, in partnership with EMC Corporation, is the ability to create an automated, fast "multi-hop" asynchronous mirroring of data that enables DTCC to create consistent copies of large volumes of data and push it across long distances very rapidly. DTCC also automated many of the key functions involved in replication and disaster recovery, including the ability to restart the highly complex replication process in the event of an interruption, so that such data replication is transparent to users.

"We have been working and talking with a wide range of security and technology experts over the past two years with the single-minded goal of ensuring the safety and security of our people, our data processing operations, our operations centers, our technological capacity and our data network resiliency," said Donald F. Donahue, DTCC's chief operating officer. "The safety of our people remains our highest priority. Their unique knowledge and experience in clearance and settlement are at the core of this organization and ensure the continuity of our support to the industry."

According to the report, DTCC is planning a further dispersal of personnel outside the New York City region by 2005 in order to comply with the standards of an interagency task force report issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission and other Federal regulators.

DTCC is also requiring most major customers of its depository subsidiary to test both their primary and backup sites with DTCC's various data centers once a year. The complete report is available on DTCC's web site at www.dtcc.com under "Thought Leadership" and "White Papers."

About DTCC
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-backed securities, over-the-counter credit derivatives and emerging market debt. DTCC's depository also provides custody and asset servicing for more than two million securities issues from the United States and 100 other countries and territories. In addition, DTCC is a leading processor of mutual funds and insurance transactions, linking funds and carriers with their distribution networks. DTCC has operating facilities in multiple locations in the United States and overseas. For more information on DTCC, visit www.dtcc.com.