CREST is a UK-based central securities depository that holds UK equities and UK gilts, as well as Irish equities and other international securities. It was named after its securities settlement system, CREST, and has been owned and operated by Euroclear since 2002. The name CREST stands for Certificateless Registry for Electronic Share Transfer. CREST allows shareholders and bondholders to hold assets in a dematerialised, i.e. electronic form, rather than holding physical share certificates. CREST also serves a number of other important functions, such as assisting in the payments of dividends to shareholders. It is also an "electronic trade confirmation system" ("ETC") (using Trax). When parties to a transaction make a deal, they both electronically confirm their sides of the transaction via electronic transfer. Both parties are required to submit confirmation details to Crest. In the event that transaction details do not match, CREST will highlight the issues and ensure that the problems are resolved as soon as is practicable. Stamp duty in the United Kingdom is only payable on physical share certificates therefore no stamp duty is payable on shares settled via CREST, however to compensate for this the UK government added a Stamp Duty Reserve Tax which is collected by CREST on behalf of His Majesty's Revenue and Customs. History The project was launched in 1993, following the TAURUS fiasco, and the operating company CrestCo was founded in 1996. CREST was acquired by Euroclear in August 2002. Members There are two classes of members on CREST: members and sponsored members. Members are usually pension funds, inter-dealer brokers or other large financial institutions with significant resources. Sponsored members have the same rights and responsibilities as members. However, given that they do not have the financial or technical resources of the full members, they rely on their sponsoring member to interface with CREST. Registrars and CREST Depository Interest (CDI) UK stocks are held by registrars who are members of CREST and are therefore integrated into the transfer of ownership. Irish equities and ETF securities are also settled directly through CREST members. For international stocks, CREST holds a pool of them in a local depository, such as Clearstream for German stocks and CDS for Canadian stocks. CREST then issues a CDI to each holder of the security, which can then be transferred in CREST just like a UK equity. This is similar to the depositary receipts issued in other countries. However, restrictions