Value Added Products

CHAMP

This product is designed to act as an intelligent gateway into the CHESS settlement system. The establishment of a communication link with the CHESS system is a fundamental requirement for securities industry professionals to enable electronic messages to be sent and received. Equally, as these messages generally relate to the movement of shares in the settlement process, there must be an ability to feed them into an existing client accounting management system.

It was against this background that Computershare developed the CHAMP product.

In later developments, CHAMP was re-engineered (CHAMP Bank) to provide banks with a communication gateway into CHESS to facilitate the later move to Delivery versus Payment in the CHESS settlement system.

The CHAMP system is currently used by 38 Institutions and brokers and CHAMP Bank is used by three major banks.

To conform with new developments in the CHESS settlement system, we are developing Electronic Trade Confirmation for CHAMP, which will be implemented by the end of September 1997.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

An integral part of a share registrar's function is the provision of telephone and enquiry services to shareholders, brokers, investing institutions and custodians.

Our share registry clients channel large amounts of resourcing into this important function, but many of the questions are routine in nature.

Against this background, Computershare developed its IVR product. This uses touch-phone technology and enables shareholders to satisfy their enquiry by either following simple instructions or electing to speak to an enquiry officer at the share registry. The product is flexible, allowing registrars and/or their companies to be able to decide the breadth of information that may be made available.

IVR has the advantage of being available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can reduce costs without any impact on service levels and efficiency.

The IVR service was used recently as part of the major float of an Australian company, with great success. Over 70% of callers were able to satisfy their enquiries without the need to speak to a registry officer.

Integrated Document Imaging & Workflow

A feature in most office environments, is the extent of paper documents which are processed each day. Whilst the "paperless office" may be some way ahead, the development of Document Imaging is an important step toward achieving this goal.

In future, a letter received from a shareholder and its response will be capable of being captured electronically in Computershare's SCRIP system and linked to the particular shareholder's account. In this way, a registrar will be able to access all correspondence from a particular shareholder easily and without delay.

This same principle may well be able to be applied in a broking environment where, in conjunction with the SUMMIT Broker Accounting System, this facility can be used with great effect.

We are currently in the research and development phase for this product which we would aim to introduce into the market during the last quarter of the 1997 calendar year.

Record Management

The accumulation of historical data on any computer system gradually erodes its efficiency. A dilemma exists for share registrars arising from the conflicting requirements of system efficiency and the need to store and access historical information.

System efficiency can be maintained by installing faster processors, adding more disk and more memory. However this is a costly option that, at best, will only provide a short term solution.

Computershare is addressing this problem with the development of a data- warehousing facility. This will enable the maintenance of historical data in an external medium (for example CD Rom or magneto-optical). In this way we can relieve pressure on the data base, while continuing to make the information easily accessible by our clients.

At present, we are conducting detailed research into the product to ensure that we develop this facility with the latest technology which is also proven to be reliable. Our intention is to introduce this facility in 1998.