The BT rights issue - the world's biggest ever - was the first to be processed electronically through the UK book-entry system Crest. It saw thirty thousand electronic messages replace an estimated 500,000 pieces of paper and accompanying cheques, with £4.8 billion transferred electronically to the company’s bank account by 9.30am on the final day of the issue. As soon as their electronic payments had been made, holders in Crest were immediately able to transfer their new shares electronically.

Many individual shareholders also still hold BT share certificates, and were offered their rights in the traditional paper way with Lloyds TSB Registrars processing up to 90,000 forms and cheques each day. Certificates for these new shares are to be despatched by 16 July.

Simon Davies, managing director of Lloyds TSB Registrars, says: "By using Crest, we have allowed the smooth trade of rights, without the paperchase around the market which has taken place in the past...Electronic settlement can only be described as a dramatic change in how rights issues are managed."

Alan Scott, head of BT shareholder services, says: "With nearly 1.8 million individual shareholders on our register and many more with holdings in nominee accounts such as PEPs and ISAs, a rights issue of this scale simply could not have taken place within the required timescale if every shareholding and every payment had had to be processed on paper."

Iain Saville, CrestCo chief executive, reckons the securities industry saved "many millions of pounds" by conducting the issue electronically. "These savings are real, and extremely material in the context of reducing clearing and settlement costs," he says.