Omgeo Adding LEI Field to Alert System
September 10, 2012
Omgeo said Monday it is updating its global database for settlement and account instructions to accommodate the 20-digit codes that next year are expected to be used to identity participants in financial transactions, worldwide.
The post-trade services organization said it can now capture so-called Legal Entity Identifiers in its Omgeo Alerts system, a database it maintains for handling settlement of transactions.
The alert system will allow investment managers and broker dealers to view 23 new fields containing the names and identifiers of their counterparties.
Avox, a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), will maintain the legal entity data that populates the additional 23 data fields.
These include legal name, trading status, date updated, aliases, bank identifier cod, and registered and operating addresses.
Ahead of the proposed implementation of regulatory requirements for a global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) standard, a field also has been created to capture and populate LEIs in the Omgeo alert system.
Omgeo is a joint venture between DTCC and Thomson Reuters.
The Global Financial Markets Association and other industry trade groups are backing an alliance between DTCC and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication to be the central operating unit that oversees the registration and issuance of the Legal Entity ID codes.
But Omgeo said the new fields was a response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers four years ago this week.
“Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Omgeo became involved in discussions with a number of our clients who, overwhelmingly, wanted to identify ways to better understand and track the underlying legal entities for each counterparty. ALERT was enhanced in direct response to these specific and growing industry requirements,” Bill Meenaghan, Global Product Manager for ALERT at Omgeo, said
“While this is an independent initiative, in anticipation of a mandated Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), we have added an LEI data field in accordance with regulatory requirements and in support of the LEI.”
In August, DTCC and SWIFT said they launched an online utility for registering and issuing Interim Compliant Identifiers for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The LEI system is scheduled to get off the ground in March. The CFTC’s identifiers will be used in the interim to identify firms involved in over-the-counter trading of swaps. The CFTC has oversight, due to Dodd-Frank, of the launch of electronic facilities that will execute and clear trades in standardized swaps contracts.
On the same morning that the portal formally launched, so did a services industry aimed at preparing market participants to deploy and employ the ID codes.
iGate, a provider of technology and operations services based in Fremont, Calif., said it was launching an initiative to help banks and other financial institutions prepare for the era of tracking transactions in financial markets by counterparties’ Legal Entity Identifiers.
On October 15, the LEI Implementation Group plans to hold an “operational solution demonstration day” in Basel, Switzerland.
The group, under the auspices of the international coordinating agency known as the Financial Stability Board, is inviting any and all parties to “present and explain operational proposals and solutions which will advance the implementation and development of the global LEI system.’’
