TAURUS (Transfer and Automated Registration of Uncertified Stock) was a program that set out to transfer settlements of London Stock Exchange shares from transmission of paper share certificates to an automated system.
[1] It was started in the 1980s and was intended to replace the TALISMAN system, which was only available for settlement of trades between participating brokerage firms.
TAURUS eventually cost £75 million and was replaced with the less-ambitious CREST system.
[3] With seventeen proposed systems, the designers behind TAURUS tried to merge the ideas of the people involved, creating a Frankenstein's monster that resulted in costs estimated at £400 million to the stakeholders.
The Sunday Times described its failure to build the system as "the beginning of the end for the London Stock Exchange".