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CBRS Fact Sheet

DTCC is enhancing its Cost Basis Reporting Service (CBRS) to help financial firms and other market participants comply with a new January 2011 mandate requiring the reporting of cost basis information to investors and the federal government.

The new law, part of the federal Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, poses a significant challenge for the industry because it also requires this information to be passed among financial intermediaries when assets move from one firm to another. In other words, market participants would need to establish hundreds of new connections to transmit the cost basis data – a complex, expensive and time-consuming undertaking that would siphon away limited resources, especially during a time of economic uncertainty.

Infrastructure Helps Firms Meet Regulatory Mandates

The industry approached DTCC to help solve this challenge because they recognized the infrastructure could play an important role in mitigating new regulatory requirements coming out of Washington. And DTCC acted quickly to leverage CBRS to build a common hub that would help its customers meet such regulatory requirements in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

While the current version of CBRS allows financial firms to pass customer cost-basis information on assets transferred through NSCC's Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS), the enhanced service will effectively extend its efficiencies and capabilities to transfer agents, issuers, mutual funds, custodian banks and broker/dealers to move cost basis information — from one financial firm to another — on all assets.