OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2009. The National Depository Center (NDC), Russia's only settlement depository servicing the full range of debt and equity securities of Russian issuers, and the registrar JSC "DRAGa", announced today their adoption of an electronic data interchange (EDI) system in their information interactions, following a trial.

The switch to a unified standard in information exchange will allow accelerated operations and settlements, reduced risks of error and fraud, increased operational efficiency and enhanced confidentiality.

Alexander Karavayev, General Director, JSC "DRAGa", said: “Implementation of EDI in our interactions with NDC is a next stage of technological improvement of services provided to Russia’s major companies whose registers are maintained by our company, including JSC "GAZPROM", AO MOSENERGO and JSC Gazprom neft. EDI allows the fast exchange of all necessary data in a format conducive to further automated processing and also gives shareholders an opportunity to make operations in their registers swiftly.”

Nikolay Egorov, NDC Director, added: “The switch to EDI between NDC and JSC "DRAGa" allows us to improve the quality of services and to accelerate interactions with the clients. Use of EDI technology will let us minimize financial costs and allow reduced time needed for the organization of interactions between the participants of the process. We will be also able to create conditions for a comprehensive reduction of risks related to processing of large volumes of information.”

JSC "DRAGa" will enter records of transactions made in customer accounts of NDC acting as a nominal holder and provide information on NDC’s customer accounts opened in registers, on the basis of electronic data.