A chronicle of the systems development project that created VP, the world’s first dematerialized securities depository – a piece of financial infrastructure that later has become a model for many financial markets all over the world. The project used ground-breaking strategies in choice of systems development methodologies and use of standard software. Rapid implementation using prototyping ensured timely user feed-back. Project management based on very visible milestones ensured that the project was on target – both in terms of time, budget and user satisfaction.