The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) global markets entity identifier (GMEI) utility, offered in collaboration with SWIFT, has issued over 165,000 legal entity identifiers (LEIs) to entities from over 140 jurisdictions, representing about 50% share of the LEIs issued worldwide.

 

With this progress, DTCC and SWIFT have played a significant role in the growth of the global legal entity identifier system (GLEIS) and are key partners with the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF), which was created last year to help manage the overall system.

 

The GMEI utility is expected to continue to grow in the coming years as regulators increasingly mandate the use of LEIs in new financial rules. Forthcoming EU regulations, including European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID) and Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), all require the use of LEIs in their reporting architecture. The DTCC looks forward to, and expects to see, more U.S. regulatory mandates around the use of LEIs.

 

The GMEI utility creates and assigns globally accepted LEIs in a standard format; validates the accuracy of the associated reference data; and stores this in a public database free for all to use and redistribute. The LEI is a critical tool for helping regulators and market participants aggregate and better understand exposures, enhance market transparency and significantly improve the analysis of global systemic risk.

 

Bill Hodash, managing director of business development at DTCC, said: “Achievement of these milestones illustrates the seriousness with which we take our role within the GLEIS. The industry, DTCC and SWIFT, other local operating units (LOUs) and the GLEIF are all working together to fully implement the LEI since it is so critical to increasing transparency and improving counterparty and global systemic risk analysis.”

 

In 2014, the GMEI utility achieved several key milestones, including:

• Developed strategic partnerships with NordLEI in Sweden, LuxCSD – the LOU in Luxembourg, and CDS Clearing and Depository Services – sponsored to be an LOU in Canada, to increase geographical LEI coverage. These collaborations leverage the GMEI utility’s infrastructure and capabilities and complement a collaboration formed back in 2013 with CUSIP Global Services (CGS), the largest National Numbering Agency in the world.



• Being ranked #1 for data consistency and uniformity by TABB Group and Alacra’s LEI Comprehensiveness Ranking in initial two quarterly evaluations of the LOUs.