Treasury Introduces Improved Software For Large Direct Auction Bids

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 19, 2004

The Bureau of the Public Debt, in cooperation with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, today launched another enhancement to its auction bidding software application, TAAPSLink® v2, for large non-primary dealer bidders to use when submitting bids directly to Treasury over the Internet.

TAAPSLink® v2 was originally designed to submit competitive bids in auctions for our regular large auction participants over a virtual private network. The latest version of the application provides an additional group of large direct auction bidders with Internet-based access to Treasury auctions using Java technology that is more reliable, stable and easier for competitive auction bidders to use than its predecessor TAAPSLink® v1. TAAPSLink® v1 and v2 are two separate front-end applications that are now used by more than 600 firms to submit both competitive and non-competitive bids in Treasury auctions.

Harris Nesbitt Corporation, a large direct auction bidder that was involved in the testing of the application, went live today using TAAPSLink® v2 to submit its auction bids over the Internet. According to Michael Domenico, Managing Director, U.S. Fixed Income for Harris Nesbitt, preliminary work with TAAPSLink® v2 shows that "it is more straightforward in layout, faster and more secure than the original version. We are delighted to have been invited to be the first company to use the new application, and are confident that it will be highly successful."