KARACHI, Sept 3: Central Depository Company (CDC) could earn after-tax profit of Rs25 million for the latest fiscal year, after the (gestation period) losses of the previous four years, chief executive officer of the company, Mohammad Hanif Jakhura told a press conference on Tuesday.

The CDC chief said that it was five years since the CDC commenced live operations and the company was responsible for settlement of over 97 per cent of the total settlement, representing a market capitalisation of shares equivalent to Rs455.77 billion. “Till date, there are 393 live securities in CDC that account for the majority of trading at the stock exchanges in Pakistan,” Jakhura stated, adding that CDC had also managed to successfully induct Term Finance Certificates into the system. The total number of TFCs in CDC stood at 32.

The CDC chief executive stated that CDC was incorporated in 1993 to manage and operate the Central Depository System (CDS). It had eliminated the paper-based settlement of shares and introduced futuristic and technologically advanced electronic settlement. The company, having one of the largest IT set-ups in Pakistan (with offices in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad) was one of the most extensive IT projects to be launched during the last decade.

It had had significant impact on the financial services industry by sharply reducing back office work of the capital market elements (i.e brokers, issuers etc). Also, the risk of damaged, forged and duplicate certificates that previously prevailed, had been eliminated and issuers of securities were freed from lengthy and tedious activities undertaken at the time of book closure, dispatching of share certificates, cash dividend, bonus and right issues apart from enjoying benefits of electronic mergers through the Central Depository System (CDS), he said.