Glossary

Every term between trade and settlement.

CAT Reporting (Consolidated Audit Trail)

The obligation under FINRA Rule 6800 Series and SEC Rule 613 for broker-dealers to report every NMS and OTC equity order event to the CAT Central Repository by 8:00 AM ET on T+1, with customer account data updated daily through CAIS.

Central Counterparty Clearing (CCP)

Financial market infrastructure that legally interposes itself as the counterparty to every trade through novation, eliminates bilateral credit risk, and reduces settlement volume through multilateral netting.

Central Securities Depository (CSD)

The financial market infrastructure that holds securities in book-entry form and executes DvP settlement finality — the legal transfer of ownership that converts a CCP's netted instruction into a confirmed change in beneficial ownership.

Corporate Action Processing

Corporate action processing is the operational workflow that captures issuer events, calculates per-account entitlements, and reconciles cash and position changes against custodian records.

Counterparty Risk Management

The identification and control of risk that a counterparty fails to settle a trade, exposing the surviving party to replacement cost or principal loss.

Custody Reconciliation

The daily comparison of a firm's internal position records against the custodian's statement of holdings, identifying breaks for investigation and regulatory documentation.

Delivery Versus Payment

A settlement mechanism (DvP) that links the transfer of securities to the simultaneous transfer of payment, ensuring neither leg completes without the other.

Digital Asset Recordkeeping Broker Dealer

The requirement for broker-dealers to apply Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 to digital asset securities, linking on-chain transaction data to the account-level records regulators require.

DLT Books and Records Financial Institution

The use of distributed ledger technology as books and records infrastructure for financial institutions, subject to the same substantive standards as traditional recordkeeping systems.