The CFTC yesterday approved approved the DTCC’s application to run a multi-asset class swap data repository (SDR) in the US, with the promise of increased transparency in the OTC derivatives marketplace. The depository – slated for launch on October 12 – doubtless will make use of the CICI interim legal entity identifier, cementing that nomenclature’s place in the roadmap toward a standard global LEI framework during 2013. Details here.
And then…
The Financial Stability Board (FTB) pretty much at the same time released a progress note on its plans for the global LEI system that outlined an “urgent study” into the format of the 20-digit identifier. This would seem to throw a cat among the proverbial pigeons: many in the industry had reached the conclusion that the LEI will be a random number containing no s0-called intelligence. Does the urgent review – to be undertaken by the Private Sector Preparatory Group (PSPG) over the coming week (!) and reported on September 28 – hit that assumption out of the ballpark?
Quite possibly.
The debate over whether to add intelligence to the LEI number has raged all summer. But we thought it had simmered down with the broad assumption that they nays had outrun the yays. Seems we were wrong…. We’ll know in a week. Here’s what the FSB had to say:
“Number allocation scheme for the Global LEI system: The [LEI Implementation Group] has commissioned an urgent study from the Private Sector Preparatory Group (PSPG) on the appropriate numbering scheme for the global LEI system. A number of experts have recently emphasised the importance of the identifier generation scheme in terms of the flexibility, costs, and operational requirements of the LEI system from the stand-point of short-term implementation and integration of local systems, as well as long-term flexibility and resilience of the global system. Interested PSPG experts are asked to prepare recommendations by September 28 to enable the IG to develop a proposal for the final global LEI system numbering scheme.”
Elsewhere within the progress note, the FSB outlines its plans for establishing the global governance structure for the LEI ahead of next March’s planned launch.
The next major step – aside from the report from the IG’s “urgent “review” – will be a “Global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) System Operational Solution Demonstration Day on 15 October in Basel, Switzerland.”
Book your tickets now.
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