The value of the Legal Entity Identifier for the participants of the securities industry

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Abstract: The G20 initiated the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) programme and endorsed in 2012 the Financial Stability Board (FSB) recommendations for the development of the global LEI system to uniquely identify parties that are engaged in financial transactions. The LEI is based on the ISO 17442 LEI standard. The LEI data is available free of charge for any user of the public and private sectors on - www.gleif.org. GLEIF delivers also free-of-charge services about the direct and ultimate parent and/or - children of a legal entity. Several mapping services relevant for the securities industry are available. The FSB published in May 2019 its Peer Review Report with four sets of recommendations to increase the number of issued LEIs. The securities industry is an important segment of the private sector for the global LEI programme. In this paper, market participants are informed about the progress made in the implementation of the LEI programme and on the way toward global adoption — by self-regulation and/or regulation — for the benefit of investors and issuers.

Keywords: FSB, GLEIF, LEI ROC, ISO 17442 LEI, ISO 9362 BIC, ISO ISIN 6166, ISO 20275 ELF

Gerard Hartsink has been appointed by the Financial Stability Board in June 2014 as the first chairman of the GLEIF Board of Directors. He serves as member of the World Trade Board that has as objective to enable global trade with support of digital technologies. He is active in organisations promoting e-commerce (member of the Digital Economy Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce [ICC]) and e-governance (member of the Forum Standaardisatie of the Dutch government) and is Head of the Dutch delegation of ISO TC 307 Blockchain and DLT. He has broad experience in the payments, securities and forex industry. He has served as Chairman of CLS Bank International, the European Payments Council and the RMG of ISO 20022 and as Board member of SWIFT, LCH.Clearnet Group, Euroclear Netherlands and the Euro Banking Association (EBA). As former Senior Executive Vice President of ABN AMRO, he has over 30 years’ experience in sales, product development, regulatory affairs, information management and operations.