Electronic Filing Of Transfer Agent Forms - Securities And Exchange Commission Page 37

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The FRFA discusses the alternatives considered by the Commission in connection with the

proposed amendments to Regulation S-T, Rules 17Ac2-1, 17Ac2-2, and 17Ac3-1 and to Forms TA-

1, TA-2, and TA-W and the instructions to the forms. The purpose of electronic filing is to have all

filings required to be filed with the Commission received in a timely and efficient manner and for

the data filed on the forms to be stored in a single, centralized database. Any forms filed on paper

could be subject to loss, inaccuracies, and delayed reporting, which would affect the integrity of the

database and affect the Commission's ability to perform its oversight role with respect to transfer

agents. Accordingly, we have determined that it would not be appropriate to allow any transfer

agents to continue to file the forms in paper form unless the Commission were to grant the transfer

agent a continuing hardship exemption under Rule 202 of Regulation S-T.

As an alternative to creating the electronic forms in EDGARLite, which requires the filer to

purchase MS InfoPath™ software, transfer agents or a third party can prepare the forms outside of

EDGARLite by creating an XML tagged version of the filing as an ASCII document using technical

specifications that will be available on the Commission’s public Web site.

It should be noted that

this filing method requires some technical expertise on the part of the filer and the Commission does

not anticipate that transfer agents or third parties will find it worth the cost savings to develop the

transfer agent forms outside of EDGARLite.

The Commission also considered whether entities can file the forms with the Commission by

using public computer services, such as an internet cafe or a public library, and therefore avoid the

expense of any required hardware, software, or internet access. Commission staff contacted public

computer service providers in 2004 and determined that it was unlikely that these facilities would

have the necessary MS Infopath™ software requirement for using the EDGARLite templates.

See note 10.

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