TreasuryDirect started in 1986 as a book entry system with business conducted over postal mail, as an alternative to purchasing securities as engraved paper certificates.

[8] Another component is "Treasury Hunt", a tool to help the public find and cash in their mature savings bonds and other security interest payments owed to them.

[22][23] Related to increased demand in 2022, the TreasuryDirect customer support phone number sometimes had wait times longer than two hours.

[24] The terms and conditions for securities purchased through TreasuryDirect are in the Code of Federal Regulations in the form of an FAQ, including details about account management.

[25] Before establishing TreasuryDirect, Treasury staff sold securities in paper certificate form to individual investors from windows in the lobbies of their office in Washington, D.C. and some Federal Reserve Banks.

[28][29] Instead of issuing traditional engraved certificates, it sold notes, bonds, and bills in a computerized book-entry system; Treasury estimated that this shift would save $46 million.

[32] The changes included enabling debits from a bank account (instead of paying by check), ordering reinvestments over a toll-free telephone number, and selling securities by mail.

[35] At the time, a Treasury official said that the cost of running the paper savings bond program was relatively high, making it ''not an efficient means of financing for the federal government".

[37] From 2007 to 2011, the login system also required entering a random code from a card mailed to the user, which a Treasury spokesperson described as "somewhat of a stickler for us in terms of customer satisfaction.

"[38] This access card provided a form of multi-factor authentication, and TreasuryDirect replaced it with the more standard method of sending a one-time password to the user's email address.

[1] In 2019, Treasury said that TRIM would support both laptops and mobile phones, and that it would "allow the unbanked and the under-banked to electronically purchase investments by providing alternative payment mechanisms, unlike TreasuryDirect which requires bank accounts.

[23] In October 2022, TreasuryDirect updated its public informational website to make it easier to navigate and understand for investors looking for answers about bonds and other Treasury products.

[54] Near the end of October 2022, in the last few days that TreasuryDirect offered the 9.62% rate, the website saw a surge of new customers and was slow or unavailable to access for some people who had wanted to buy I Bonds.

[55] Treasury said it could not guarantee that all orders would be completed in time to receive the 9.62% rate,[55] and that the volume of purchases was causing "significant pressure and strain on the 20-year-old TreasuryDirect application".

"[57] In June 2023, it was announced that there is a high risk to the TRIM/MyTreasury project due to ongoing challenges related to delivery of core functionality, coding, defects, testing, and environments.