Treasury Automated Auction Processing System - TAAPS

A computer network system developed by the Federal Reserve (and facilitated by its banks) to process the tenders received for treasury securities. The treasury securities are traded through an auction process in the primary market. Tenders are received by TAAPS from brokers wishing to purchase marketable securities. Each bid is processed and reviewed automatically by TAAPS to ensure it is in compliance with the Treasury's Uniform Offering Circular.

|||TAAPS was developed to become the heart of the operational process for the auctioning of treasury securities. The system is responsible for receiving bids, separating competitive and non-competitive bids, the ranking of competitive bids by increasing yield or discount rate and pparing a summary of the auction results.

Until 1993, bids were received in paper form and processed manually, which was an extremely time-consuming and inefficient process. The TAAPS system created the streamlined and efficient process needed to handle the growing volume of treasury securities trades. In 2003 the Federal Reserve auctioned off $3.42 trillion in securities.