Apparently addressing growing industry concerns about the prospect of delays in adoption of the long-awaited legal entity identifier (LEI), the Financial Stability Board (FSB) has set up an expert group to make what it describes as “concrete proposals” on the implementation of a global LEI system. At its meeting in Basel this week, the FSB said the group would bring together experts from the official sector but would be supported by an advisory panel with members derived from the private sector.
The potential for delay to the LEI project – despite plans for the release of a new ISO standard this week – have dominated recent debate on the topic. Current thinking has LEI utility provider Swift and its proposed facilities manager the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) examining the scope of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) requirements with a view to building the LEI database starting with the swaps market. LEIs would be established for entities involved in these markets and then the plan would be to extend this to other markets in a phased manner.
At the Basel meeting, FSB said it was supporting the development of an LEI by coordinating work among the global regulatory community to prepare recommendations for the appropriate governance framework, as requested at the G20 Cannes Summit. The new expert group will deliver its implementation proposals by April, at which point they will be reviewed by the FSB and presented to the G20 at its summit in June.
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