The Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA) has teamed up with Standard & Poor’s to launch a new service that provides Cusip and Cusip-based ISIN numbers along with core descriptive data for syndicated loan deals and facilities. Currently the syndicated loan market uses different IDs to represent in the same credit in proprietary systems used by administrative agents, lenders, traders, potential buyers, regulators and various pricing and ratings vendors. The new Syndicated Loan Service uses the Cusip system to establish a common numbering system to reference syndicated loans in the corporate loan market. The initial release contains approximately 2,000 Cusip numbers for deals and facilities. The subscription services contains daily additions and changes to deals as released by the 21 administrative agents currently applying for Cusip numbers (which covers 80 percent of the corporate loan market).
The LSTA, the trade association for corporate lending and loan trading, formed a committee back in November 1999 to address the issue of unique identifiers for syndicated loans. It was decided that adopting the Cusip numbering scheme, as well as being endorsed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA), would provide a number of benefits. These include precise exchange of information, reconciliation and increased efficiencies and improved settlement times, among others.
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