ISO standard provides global solution for legal entity identification for financial services
Date : 30 May 2012
ISO has just published a new standard for the financial services industry which provides a global solution for the accurate and unambiguous identification of entities engaged in financial transactions.
ISO 17442:2012, Financial services – Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), is aimed at meeting the data collection and analysis needs of both national and global regulators in their responses to problems arising from the world financial crisis.
The development of ISO 17442 has been positively received by the financial services sector and by regulators. These include the Financial Stability Board (FSB) which was established to coordinate at the international level the work of national financial authorities and international standard setting bodies, and to develop and promote the implementation of effective regulatory, supervisory and other financial sector policies in the interest of financial stability.
ISO 17442 is one of the standards developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 68, Financial services, whose leadership was invited to participate in the FSB Industry Advisory Panel formed by the FSB Expert Group charged by the G-20 to prepare recommendations for a global LEI solution to the G-20 at its upcoming meeting in June, in Los Cabos, Mexico. In a communiqué following its plenary meeting on 29-30 May in Hong Kong to prepare its recommendations, the FSB stated that its initial reference data and LEI code are in line with ISO 17442.
ISO/TC 68 Chair, Karla McKenna, comments: "The work on the LEI is exemplary in providing an international solution through standards. ISO /TC 68 brought the relevant communities and stakeholders together, looked across industry lines on the scope and coverage of the LEI standard, and built the necessary consensus to deliver ISO 17442, demonstrating the responsiveness and value of the ISO process."
