The purpose of The Macedonian Central Securities Depository (MCSD) is to establish central securities register comprising all active shares, bonds and other financial instruments in Republic of Macedonia. This will lead to better access and distribution of information about the issuers and securities to:

• Investors
• Foreign investors
• Holders of restrictive rights
• Issuers
• Brokers
• Macedonian Stock Exchange
• Pledge Register
• Other authorized institutions in accordance with the law.

A pre-study concerning the establishment of a central securities register and a clearing and settlement system in the Republic of Macedonia was started in 1999 as a component of the Government's program for the improvement and development of the Macedonian capital market. The improvement of the infrastructure for increasing national as well as international investors' confidence in the Macedonian capital market and financial sector in general, were among the preconditions for the World Bank and IMF's programs of financial support to the Republic of Macedonia.

Founders of the Central Securities Depository are brokerage houses, banks and insurance companies. The Central Securities Depository is established as a joint stock company and since 01.01.2006 is working on profit basis.

The Macedonian CSD is providing the following services to the participants in the operations, issuers and holders securities:

-   recording of the securities in the Depository;

-  notification of the issuers and holders of securities about the condition on their accounts;

-  clearing and settlement of the liabilities arising from the transactions with securities;

-  rendering  services connected with the corporate activities;

-  other services that arise from the ownership and transactions with securities, arising from the scope of its operations.

All securities are registered and dematerialised.

Records are kept in the Depository of the issued securities and ownership positions, rights of the securities holders, the unique identification of the securities and their holders, possible limitations in the exercise of such rights, rights of third parties connected with the securities and other data referring to such rights, transfer to the securities accounts shall be made and other services connected with keeping records of the securities shall be provided. All securities shall be  recorded in the Depository in a procedure, on conditions and in a manner determined with these Rules and with the guidelines of the Depository.

ISIN  is allocated to all securities upon their registration in the Depository. ISIN shall contain data on the issuer, rights arising for the holders of those securities and other elements of the securities.

The procedure, conditions and manner of allocating ISIN is determined by the guidelines of the Depository.

The securities are recorded in special accounts with the Depository.

With a purpose of recording the securities, the Depository is opening accounts of the issuers and holders of the securities.

The opening and closing of the securities accounts, recording, changes and deletion of the ownership positions in the accounts of the securities holders, as well as other actions  connected with the changes occurred in the accounts maintained in the Depository are performed by a sole account operator.

CSD performs the clearing and settlement of the transactions with securities that were concluded on the Macedonian Stock Exchange.

The clearing and the settlement of the transactions are performed in accordance with the principle delivery versus payment, i.e. the transfer of securities related to the transactions with securities is performed through a simultaneous exchange of securities and payment. The settlement is performed on gross basis.

In the CSD frame the subject of clearing and settlement are all the transactions with securities concluded on MSE.

CSD performs the clearing and settlement of the transactions with securities based on the data received from MSE on the trading day. The data received from MSE contain elements necessary for clearing and settlement of the matched transactions.

After CSD receives the matched trades from MSE, the transaction is obligatory for both of the sides included in the stated transaction.

The transactions received from MSE are final and cannot be unilaterally canceled by the participant in the clearing (the broker). Only the CSD is allowed, by request from the MSE and with a special purpose for correction of errors, to perform some changes or to cancel the transactions.

Before the settlement, the participant in the clearing -- the seller, is obliged to provide securities on his/on his client the securities account, and the participant in the clearing -- the buyer, is obliged to provide cash on his account for cash settlement for each transaction.

 National Numbering Agency

The Macedonian CSD is a full member of ANNA and is the sole numbering agency in Republic of Macedonia. All Macedonian securities have been assigned ISINs.

The data from the CSD database are the single valid information for the issues and the ownership rights that are registered in the CSD.

The loss or damaging the data in the CSD database shall be critical for the functioning of CSD. The non-legal change of the data can result with giving incorrect information and errors in the operation of the system, as well as loses for the participants in the CSD system.

The CSD is consisted of the following two databases:

o       main database -- contains the current situation, i.e. the current legally valid data on the issues and securities accounts.

o       history database -- contains the old data, 10 years backwards. 

The informations related to the database and the content, to which the CSD personnel has access, is very confidential. According to the law, anybody who has access to the data in the CSD during their operation, are obliged to keep the secrecy of the data.