a capital budgeting project contingent on the acceptance of another project. Deposit insurance See: FDIC: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Depositary An agent appointed for a Tender or Exchange Offer who accepts certificates from shareholders, processes them and assures that the appropriate cash or new securities are properly remitted to the tendering party. Depository institution A financial institution that obtains its funds mainly through deposits from the public. This includes commercial banks, savings and loan associations, savings banks and credit unions. Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act The 1980 federal legislation that ended the regulation of the banking industry. Depository preferred Device enabling an issuer to circumvent an arbitrary corporate limit on the number of preferred sharesissuable. Applies mainly to convertible securities. Depository receipt See: ADR American Depository Receipt Depository transfer check (DTC) Check made out directly by a local bank to a particular firm or person. Depository Trust Company (DTC) DTC is the world's largest central securities depository. It accepts deposits of over 2 million equity and debt securities issues (valued at $23 trillion) from over 65 countries for custody, executesbook-entrydeliveries (valued at over $116 trillion in 2000) records book-entry pledges of those securities, and processes related income distributions.. DTC is a member of the Federal Reserve System and is owned by The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which is in turn owned primarily by most of the major banks, broker-dealers, and exchanges on Wall Street. Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), through its subsidiaries, provides post-trade clearance, settlement, custody and information services for equities, corporate and municipal debt, money market instruments, American depositary receipts, exchange-traded funds, unitinvestment trusts, mutual funds, insurance products and other securities. The National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) subsidiary, which acts as a central counterparty (CCP), provides trade guarantee, netting and risk management services for equity and debt transactions from all U.S. stock exchanges and markets. The Depository Trust Company(DTC) subsidiary has custody of and provides asset servicing for millions of securities issues of issuers from the U.S. and over 60 other countries. DTC serves as a major clearinghouse for institutional post-trade settlement. DTCC's two subsidiary businesses have Standard and Poors' highest rating: AAA. Depreciate To allocate the purchase cost of an asset over its life. Depreciated cost In terms of economics: The measure of capital consumption during production, e.g., machine and equipment wear. In terms of finance: The process of amortization of fixed assets (equipment) to spread the cost over the depreciable life of the assets. Depreciation A non-cash expense (also known as non-cash charge) that provides a source of free cash flow. Amount allocated during the period to amortize the cost of acquiring long-term assets over the useful life of the assets. To be clear, this is an accounting expense not a real expense that demands cash. The sum of depreciation expenses of prior years leads to the balance sheet item Accumulated Depreciation. Depreciation tax shield The value of the tax write-off on depreciation of plant and equipment. Depressed market Market in which supply overwhelms demand, leading