CDS’s Toronto office conducted a large-scale business continuity exercise on November 11, 2009. During the exercise, all factors such as network connectivity, desktop environment and telecommunications worked within the parameters specified in CDS's business continuity plan. Since the exercise was conducted on Remembrance Day when the banks were closed, settlements of funds did not take place and there were lower than normal transaction volumes. These conditions minimized the risk associated with a large exercise involving a significant number of staff. For more on CDS’s business continuity program, visit the Business Continuity Management at CDS page.

Further to a review undertaken by CDS to address the risk coverage of its U.S. cross-border link services, essentially all participants using the New York Link (NYL) and DTC Direct Link services confirmed they wanted to continue to subscribe.

CDS introduced the first set of training courses about depository activities and clearing and settlement processing in Canada as part of its new education program. These and three new courses on international securities activities, corporate actions processing and financial risk management will be offered again in the Spring and Fall of 2010. Visit the CDS training courses on clearing and depository securities operations in Canada page for dates and registration information.

Canada Mortgage Bonds (CMBs) became eligible in FINet®, CDS’s fixed income netting service. Bonds and T-bills issued by the Government of Canada; and bonds, notes and T-bills issued by the provincial governments are also FINet eligible.








Service level standards - Status as at November 30, 2009

Reliability/availability measures		Result
Network availability	³ 99.8% annual average	100%
Operational reliability	³ 99.4% annual average	100%
Payment exchange	³ 99.6% annual average*	100%
Days of disruption	One day or less per year	None
Disaster recovery plan	100% successful test	Completed in November 2009
Customer service measures
Claims	Claims submitted by customers will be processed within 20 business days. Management's decision will be presented to the Audit/Risk Committee at its next meeting for information purposes. The target is to keep claims approved by management to less than $50,000 in any fiscal year.	None
Entitlement processing measures
Payments on payable date – entitlement payments (in dollars) will be paid as follows:
	1. ³ 99.9% of income entitlements (interest and dividends) on payable date	99.9%
	2. ³ 99.9% of all corporate actions (reorganizations) on payable date where pre-determined**	100%
	3. Where funds have been released to CDS after established time frames, funds will be paid the following business day 100% of the time.	100%
Published Information	99.0% of entitlement information bulletins will be published within 24 hours of receipt of information.	100%

*Excluding customer extensions.
**Where not pre-determined, deemed to be date on which funds are released to CDS.