TORONTO - Achieving industry-wide straight-through processing (STP) is important to maintaining the global competitiveness of the Canadian capital markets, say the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in a discussion paper released for comment last Friday. In the paper, the CSA voice concerns about whether the securities industry in Canada is sufficiently prepared to reach industry-wide STP at the same time as the U.S. industry's STP implementation, scheduled for June 2005. The paper outlines key issues and seeks comment on proposed regulatory approaches to facilitate the industry's STP objectives.

In particular, the CSA propose to mandate a requirement that institutional trades be matched as soon as practicable after a trade is executed, but no later than the close of business on the day of the trade. The CSA paper is published together with a proposed National Instrument 24-101 - Post-Trade Matching and Settlement, a related Companion Policy and a Request for Comment Notice.

Randee Pavalow, Director of the OSC's Capital Markets Branch and Chair of the CSA STP Committee, will present the highlights of the CSA's paper and proposed trade matching rule at an upcoming April 22 industry conference on STP in Toronto organized by the Canadian Capital Markets Association. Information on this conference is available at www.ccma-acmc.ca.

The documents have been approved for publication in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. All other CSA jurisdictions are anticipated to approve the documents for public comment shortly. The comment period will expire on July 16, 2004. The documents are available in the Ontario Securities Commission Bulletin and on the OSC's Web site at www.osc.gov.on.ca.

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