The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) Global Markets Entity Identifier (GMEI) utility, offered in collaboration with Swift has issued over 165,000 legal entity identifiers (LEIs) to entities from over 140 jurisdictions, representing approximately 50% share of the LEIs issued worldwide.

With this progress, DTCC and Swift have played a significant role in the growth of the Global LEI System (GLEIS) and are key partners with the Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF), which was created last year to help manage the overall system.

“Achievement of these milestones illustrates the seriousness with which we take our role within the GLEIS. The industry, DTCC and SWIFT, other Local Operating Units (LOUs) and the GLEIF are all working together to fully implement the LEI since it is so critical to increasing transparency and improving counterparty and global systemic risk analysis,” said Bill Hodash, managing director of business development at DTCC.

The GMEI utility is expected to continue to grow in the coming years as regulators increasingly mandate the use of LEIs in new financial rules. Forthcoming EU regulations, including European Market Infrastructure Regulation (Emir), Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (Mifid II) and Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), all require the use of LEIs in their reporting architecture. The DTCC looks forward to, and expects to see, more US regulatory mandates around the use of LEIs.

The GMEI utility creates and assigns globally accepted LEIs in a standard format; validates the accuracy of the associated reference data; and stores this in a public database free for all to use and redistribute.

In 2014, the GMEI utility team developed strategic partnerships with NordLEI in Sweden, LuxCSD – the LOU in Luxembourg, and CDS Clearing and Depository Services – sponsored to be an LOU in Canada, to increase geographical LEI coverage. These collaborations leverage the GMEI utility’s infrastructure and capabilities and complement a collaboration formed back in 2013 with CUSIP Global Services (CGS), the largest National Numbering Agency in the world.

“Our collaborations with CGS, NordLEI, CDS and LuxCSD are vital to the success of the federated operating model of the GLEIS. DTCC and SWIFT are working seamlessly with our partners to provide best-in-class LEI assignment and reference data quality and we are gratified that the GMEI utility has been recognized as the leader in both areas. We look forward to the continued growth of the GLEIS in the months and years ahead,” said Ron Jordan, chief data officer at DTCC.