TAURUS (Transfer and Automated Registration of Uncertified Stock) was a program that set out to transfer settlements of
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...
shares from transmission of paper share certificates to an automated system. TAURUS was intended to reduce the time taken and the cost of settlement, increasing convenience and reducing settlement risk.
It was started in the 1980s and was intended to replace the TALISMAN system, which was only available for settlement of trades between participating brokerage firms.
TAURUS was also meant to change the London Stock Exchange settlement from a two week account period, settling all trades that occurred within each two-week interval in one batch, to a rolling settlement system, settling all trades three business days after the date of the trade. The TAURUS project required software and hardware development but also required legal and other systemic changes, resulting in
scope creep
Scope creep (also called requirement creep, or kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to changes, continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope, at any point after the project begins. This can occur when the scope of a pr ...
and
cost overrun
A cost overrun, also known as a cost increase or budget overrun, involves unexpected incurred costs. When these costs are in excess of budgeted amounts due to a value engineering underestimation of the actual cost during budgeting, they are known ...
. TAURUS eventually cost £75 million and was replaced with the less-ambitious
CREST
Crest or CREST may refer to:
Buildings
*The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York
*"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York
*Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switzerla ...
system.
With seventeen proposed systems, the designers behind TAURUS tried to merge the ideas of the people involved, creating a Frankenstein's monster that resulted in costs estimated at £400 million to the stakeholders. ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' described its failure to build the system as "the beginning of the end for the London Stock Exchange".
[; cited in ]
The project was abandoned in March 1993.
See also
*
Settlement (finance)
Settlement is the "final step in the transfer of ownership involving the physical exchange of securities or payment". After settlement, the obligations of all the parties have been discharged and the transaction is considered complete.
In the co ...
References
External links
SCITWhy Projects Fail: London Stock Exchange – Taurus
Discontinued custom software projects
Former electronic trading platforms
London Stock Exchange
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