SECURITY DELIVERIES, LOANS, AND TRANSFERS 359
direct from deliverer to receiver, a large Stock Exchange firm
might have as many as 1,000 separate round lot deliveries to
make to as many as 200 different firms. Such a house was in
consequence compelled to maintain a large staff of messengers,
since any delay in making deliveries each day before 2:15 p.M.
would cause many “failures to deliver” with interest charges
against the firm, or else clog the whole Stock Exchange settle-
ment. But the delivery of stock securities at the Stock Clear-
ing Corporation at 2:15 for the account of another member is
the equivalent of direct delivery to the receiving member's
office. The present centralization of deliveries, therefore, which
permits a messenger by a single trip to the Central Delivery
Department, to make all his firm’s available deliveries of securi-
ties handled there to all receiving firms, and obtain for his firm
all the similar security deliveries which have come to jt from
all other deliverers, has thus produced large economies of time
and messenger hire, and led to sounder and better methods in
many ways.
But an examination of certain European security settlement
systems, particularly those centering in the Bank des Berliner
Kassen-Vereins, should speedily persuade anyone familiar with
security markets, that the New York Stock Exchange can still
do much to improve its methods of security handling. To this
task a special committee on Centralization has for several years
addressed itself, and it is only fair to state that the centraliza-
tion of security deliveries may prove only an initial step in the
establishment of several very economic and superior yet quite
far-reaching and radically new methods of handling securities.
Even at the risk of suffering the fate of most prophets, the
writer wishes to express an entirely personal opinion as to the
direction which these changes may take. Once centralization
of security deliveries is completely established, it may then be
possible to place the Stock Clearing Corporation directly vis-a-
vis to its members on all security deliveries. Thus, instead
of delivering or receiving securities through it, the members
