The Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) of the Global Legal Entity Identifier System (GLEIS) has endorsed the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Turkey’s Takasbank as pre-Local Operating Units (LOUs), making the LEI codes they issue or have issued acceptable for regulatory reporting in the jurisdictions represented by the ROC.
While these endorsements mark progress in development of the GLEIS, the ROC has yet to name the board directors of the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF), despite expectations that it would have done this by the end of October. The GLEIF will operate the GLEIS’ Central Operating Unit (COU), a pivotal element in the complete system.
On the status of the foundation’s board of directors, the chairs of the ROC state: “The LEI ROC is working hard to complete the establishment of the GLEIS and its operating layer – the GLEIF that will operate the COU. Currently, the LEI ROC is preparing all necessary legal and financial documents necessary for the establishment of the Swiss non-for-profit foundation. Once the legal and administrative processes are completed, the GLEIF and its board of directors will be in place. Until the official establishment of the GLEIF, the LEI ROC is not in a position to disclose any information on the list of directors. But we can assure you that LEI ROC members are working expeditiously to complete this key task.”
Despite a delay in naming the board directors of the GLEIF, the ROC is pressing ahead with the endorsement of pre-LOUs. The LSE, sponsored by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and Takasbank, sponsored by the Turkey Capital Markets Board, have fulfilled the due diligence set out by the ROC in its 27 July, 2013 principles for the creation of an interim LEI system and have been endorsed as pre-LOUs. They join the CICI Utility, WM Datenservice and INSEE, which were endorsed on October 3, 2013.
The ROC note endorsing the LSE and Takasbank states that improvements will be necessary as the interim system moves to full operational deployment and cautions endorsed and prospective pre-LOUs that they will have to follow additional guidance from both the ROC and later the GLEIF. This guidance is expected to cover issues including the use of business registry information as part of the LEI data record and the porting of pre-LEIs from one pre-LOU to another. Both policy and technical guidance are expected for porting LEIs, but endorsed pre-LOUs can begin porting on the authorised request of the LEI registrant straight away, without waiting for further guidance.
Recent additions to the list of sponsored pre-LOUs that have been allocated a four-digit prefix are: the National Board for Patents and Registration, sponsored by the Financial Supervisory Authority of Finland, which received its prefix last month; and the Bundesanzeiger Verlag, the operator of the official archive mechanism in Germany, which is sponsored by the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – WM Datenservice has the same sponsor – and received its prefix last week. These additions bring the total number of pre-LOUs to 15, of which eight are operational and five are endorsed by the ROC. The number of both pre-LOUs and endorsements is expected to rise as the theory of a complete GLEIS gradually turns into practice.
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