Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation

Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) has long been dedicated to financial innovation and diversified businesses, providing multiple services for markets and investors. This year marks the 30th anniversary of TDCC. The core securities service system has also been serving the securities and financial markets for nearly 30 years. Last year, TDCC smoothly transformed its system from a large mainframe-based model to an open platform. The Conference on the Transformation and Reform of the TDCC Core System took place on November 25, 2019 at The Sherwood Taipei. The conference incorporated speeches and panels regarding the discussions on the successful experience in IT system transformation and prospects for IT service development. On behalf of the host, Sherman Lin, Chairman & CEO, stressed the inevitable global trend of corporate digital transformation in his remarks. It is a pressing issue that all members of the company should improve their digital knowledge and capabilities. With the resources and core capabilities at hand, TDCC is actively promoting business diversification, serving as a safe, efficient, and cost-effective backend service provider for the securities market. Transformation and innovation are valued and fostered to keep up with the latest trends. The scope of services and clientele are expanded step by step. In addition, TDCC is helping the competent authority and governmental agencies to promote significant policies on the national level.

In the conference, Zhu Han-Qiang, TDCC President, mentioned the transformation history of the IT system for core businesses. The old system was developed in 1989. During the operation, for more than 20 years, the system has been revised several times since the businesses are more complicated and the company's scope of services has expanded. The development and test schedule as well as the batch processing have become more and more complex and time-consuming due to the heavy load. Reforming the core system is imperative so as to fulfill the demands of diversified development, enhance the flexibility of extensions, and improve the problems of perplexing data correlation. Thus, the original mainframe-based system is upgraded to a new open mainframe. The hierarchical database model is replaced with a relational database model. The file structure is optimized; meanwhile, business is optimized and modularity in application programming is conducted. Since the commencement of this project in 2014, TDCC has applied a lot of talent and effort. It took four years to finally launch the new system in April 2018. The system has been operating smoothly since then.

An IBM Taiwan representative was an invited speaker of the conference, sharing the insight into IT system establishment projects and the success factors of the TDCC project. Yang Ren-Da, Vice President of the Institute for Information Industry, moderated the panel and opened up discussions with delegates from securities market-related organizations, and representatives of securities firms, banks, and insurance companies.

The conference generated lively discussions and is a great success. TDCC hopes that its IT system transformation experience can be useful for organizations in the same line of business who are interested in IT system transformation. Together, we can offer better services to the financial market.