S&P Capital IQ is ready to meet the data hierarchy requirements for Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) that are expected to be set out by the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) of the Global LEI System towards the end of this year. The company’s offer is based on existing products and can extend beyond LEI hierarchy data to link entities not only to ultimate parent companies but also to instruments at the trading level.
The company made its first commitment to entity hierarchy data a decade ago when it introduced Crosswalk, a solution that tracks instrument ownership from issuer to domestic and global parent companies. In 2013, S&P Capital IQ introduced its Business Entity Cross Reference Service (BECRS), which provides immediate hierarchy and cross reference capabilities for almost 6 million public and private entities using standardised and proprietary identifiers including the global LEI, S&P Capital IQ Company ID, S&P Capital IQ Ultimate Parent ID, rating agency identifiers and Cusip issuer numbers.
In 2014, the company went on to add a Global Instruments Cross Reference Service (GICRS) that resolves the securities numbering problem in a global trading and processing environment by allowing access to a comprehensive database of security identifiers that cross reference almost 19.5 million instruments.
Lance Risi, global product manager of cross reference solutions at S&P Capital IQ, explains: “We have a hierarchy solution that links LEIs to associated entities up and down a corporate structure, as well as to securities associated with those entities. To date, we have captured 90% of LEIs and we will soon reach 100%. We source LEI data directly from Local Operating Units within the Global LEI System and cleanse the data before it is distributed.”
While customers can select standalone data services covering entity level identifiers via BECRS or instrument level identifiers via GICRS, Risi says most customers subscribe to S&P Capital IQ’s complete cross reference solution, which allows clients to link from the trading level up to the ultimate parent for a top down view of an entire corporate structure. Many of the company’s customers are financial institutions that can benefit from cross reference services when complying with regulations such as Solvency II, Dodd-Frank and European Market Infrastructure Regulation. Other use cases for S&P Capital IQ’s cross reference solution, which is delivered using the company’s Xpressfeed data feed management solution, include internal risk management and sanctions screening.
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