Regulations Governing Treasury Securities, New Treasury Direct System

We recently implemented a new book-entry, online system for purchasing, holding and conducting transactions in Treasury securities. The system is known as New Treasury Direct. At its initial implementation, the only Treasury security that could be held in New Treasury Direct was the book-entry Series I savings bond. We are now adding the book-entry Series EE savings bond to the system. We revised the regulations governing book-entry Treasury securities held in the New Treasury Direct system by adding the Series EE savings bond to the subpart dealing with the Series I savings bond. This subpart now covers both Series I and Series EE book-entry savings bonds. We revised the offering of United States savings bonds of Series EE to provide for the book-entry Series EE savings bond. We changed the purchase limitation for definitive Series EE bonds from face amount to principal amount, for consistency with the purchase limitation for book-entry Series EE savings bonds, and with book-entry and definitive Series I bonds. We extended the original maturity period of Series EE savings bonds from 17 years to 20 years. We also rewrote the regulations in plain language. We revised the governing regulations for United States savings bonds of Series EE to make it clear that these regulations only apply to definitive Series EE savings bonds. We revised the governing regulations for Series E, H, EE, HH, and I savings bonds to streamline the handling of bonds belonging to a decedent's estate, and to make the estate provisions consistent with those for book-entry bonds.