National Securities Clearing Corporation - NSCC

Long ago, like...prior to 1976, when two parties made a stock transaction, one of them had to send the other the actual physical stock certificate. Like a piece of paper. Can you imagine? We know. It's like the stone age.

This system created a bottleneck in the trading process, especially as volume started to build over time. A lot of paper changing hands. It became a problem.

The National Securities Clearing Corporation was founded in 1976 to fix the issue. It provided a central place to process these transactions. Now it provides settlement services for the U.S. equity markets.

These days, NSCC is part of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a centralized entity that also controls The Depository Trust Company, or DTC, which provides depository services for the U.S. market.