In the United States and other countries, electronic registration is supplanting the stock certificate, with both public and private companies no longer being required to issue paper certificates. In the United States over 420 of the 7,000-plus publicly traded securities do not issue paper certificates. The United States' Central Securities Depository, the DTC, has continued to promote efforts to completely eliminate paper stock certificates, a process called dematerialization. Countries around the world have adopted similar initiatives with many countries setting deadlines for statutory dematerialization.