Bureau of the Treasury shifting to scripless securities system

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) is ready to shift to the National Registry of Scripless Securities (NRoSS) starting Aug. 28 for the auction of government securities.

In a memorandum addressed to government securities eligible dealers (GSEDs), National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon informed traders that submission of bids, confirmation of awards and settlement of results in government securities auctions will be made through the NRoSS effective Aug. 28.

The BTr uses two systems for the issuance of government securities. These are the Automated Debt Auction Processing System (ADAPS) and the Registry of Scripless Securities.

However, the agency said both systems lack the robustness and functionality to address the current and foreseen business requirements to support the expanding capital market.

As such, the BTr said it has embarked on a program to modernize the auction platform and registry of securities, thus, creating the NRoSS system.

According to the BTr, the NRoSS system is capable of servicing the settlement and recording of coupon bearing government securities across different tax status of investors.

It said the NRoSS System is also interfaced with BSP’s Philippine Payment and Settlement System via the Real Time Gross Settlement of BSP “to achieve real time, final and irrevocable delivery-versus-payment.”

With the new system in place, the Treasury instructed all GSEDs to ensure proper access and connectivity to the NRoSS to be able to participate in auctions moving forward.

In case a GSED is unable to access the NRoSS due to technical reasons, the BTr said the current manual bidding process would be observed, subject to the submission of a certification from the GSED’s information technology (IT) officer citing the reasons for its inability to establish access to the system.

Meanwhile, the BTr said it would only tap the ADAPS business continuity planning purposes.

Aside from the NRoSS, the BTr is also working on other initiatives to automate its systems.