MeridianMERIDIAN

LEI

finance.securities.lei

Legal Entity Identifier. 20-character alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies legal entities participating in financial transactions. Format (ISO 17442): 4-character alphanumeric LOU (Local Operating Unit) prefix + 14-character entity identifier + 2 check digits (ISO 7064 Mod 97-10, same algorithm as IBAN check digits).

Worked samples

DuckDB 1.5.5 · finetype 0.6.64

ValueAs VARCHARcheck_digitsentity_idlou_prefix
529900T8BM49AURSDO55529900T8BM49AURSDO555500T8BM49AURSDO5299
213800WSGIIZCXF1P572213800WSGIIZCXF1P5727200WSGIIZCXF1P52138
549300MLUDYVRQOOXS22549300MLUDYVRQOOXS222200MLUDYVRQOOXS5493
HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT394HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT39494KR0MPOU8FGXBT3HWUP
001GPB6A9XPE8XJICC14001GPB6A9XPE8XJICC1414PB6A9XPE8XJICC001G
Check digit
ISO 7064 mod 97-10
Standard

Shape

Pattern
^[A-Z0-9]{4}[A-Z0-9]{14}[0-9]{2}$
ValueLengthShape
529900T8BM49AURSDO5520matches
213800WSGIIZCXF1P57220matches
549300MLUDYVRQOOXS2220matches
HWUPKR0MPOU8FGXBT39420matches
001GPB6A9XPE8XJICC1420matches
529900T8BM49AURSDO519rejected: one character short

Background

Origin

The Legal Entity Identifier is a 20-character reference code that uniquely identifies legally distinct entities that engage in financial transactions.[1] The LEI definition relies on a standard published by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) on 30 May 2012.[1] GLEIF's timeline records the publication of ISO 17442, Part 1 in 2012.[2]

According to GLEIF's timeline, the idea of a global, public reference data utility germinated at ECB Statistics in 2006.[2] GLEIF's timeline says that in 2008 JC Trichet, former president of the ECB, gave his blessing to the idea under the impression of his Lehman experiences.[2] Wikipedia's account is that during the 2008 financial crisis regulators realised that no single identification code unique to each financial institution was available worldwide.[3] The Financial Stability Board's recommendations for a global LEI system were endorsed by the G20 at the Los Cabos Summit in June 2012.[4] The FSB's proposals included 15 High Level Principles for a global LEI system and 35 recommendations.[4] The first LEIs were issued in December 2012.[3] The LEI Regulatory Oversight Committee took over responsibility for the development and implementation of the Global LEI System in January 2013.[4] The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) was established in 2014 by the Financial Stability Board.[5]

The first four characters of an LEI are a prefix allocated uniquely to each Local Operating Unit (LOU) that issues LEIs.[1] The last two characters of an LEI are check digits.[1] The LEI check digit scheme follows ISO/IEC 7064 (MOD 97-10) and helps to avoid typing errors.[1] IBAN check digits are also calculated using MOD-97-10 as per ISO/IEC 7064.[6] GLEIF's own LEI is 506700GE1G29325QX363.[2]

Use

ESMA expected market participants to comply with the LEI requirements under MiFID II ahead of its launch on 3 January 2018.[7] Luxembourg's CSSF announced that the LEI would be mandatory from 1 November 2017 to identify the counterparty in a derivative transaction reported under EMIR.[8] The CSSF also stated that trade repositories would check the reporting counterparty's LEI against the GLEIF database before accepting EMIR reports.[8] ISO 17442's principles describe the LEI as a public good, available free of charge to all users.[2] Each LEI connects to reference information which, in GLEIF's words, answers the questions of who is who and who owns whom.[2]

Check the two final digits with the MOD 97-10 calculation as well as the shape, because a 20-character string of the right pattern can still be mistyped. (Meridian's view) A valid check is not proof that the code was ever issued, so look the LEI up in GLEIF's published data when it matters who the entity is. (Meridian's view)

Where you'll meet it

GLEIF publishes daily concatenated files of LEIs and related reference data from the LEI issuing organisations.[9]

Sources

  1. [1]Global LEI Systemorganisation
  2. [2]The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) - LEI & vLEI - Organizational Identity – GLEIForganisation
  3. [3]Legal Entity Identifiersecondary source
  4. [4]Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) - Financial Stability Boardorganisation
  5. [5]This is GLEIF - GLEIF – GLEIForganisation
  6. [6]International Bank Account Numbersecondary source
  7. [7]ESMA highlights importance of LEI for MiFIDII/MiFIR complianceorganisation
  8. [8]Mandatory use of legal entity identifier (LEI) under MiFID II/MiFIR and EMIR – CSSForganisation
  9. [9]Download the Concatenated Files - GLEIF Concatenated Files - LEI Data – GLEIFdataset

Detection notes

New in v2. LEI was introduced after the 2008 financial crisis for entity identification in financial transactions. Check digits use ISO 7064 Mod 97-10: convert letters to numbers (A=10..Z=35), compute mod 97, check digits = 98 - remainder.

In Meridian's open data

Use it

CLI · DuckDB
$ finetype infer -i "529900T8BM49AURSDO55" --mode column
→ finance.securities.lei

SELECT ft_infer('529900T8BM49AURSDO55');
-- → 'finance.securities.lei'
Cast expression
CAST({col} AS VARCHAR)

Schema

https://meridian.online/schemas/finance.securities.lei · Frictionless type string

finetype taxonomy finance.securities.lei -o json-schema

Aliases

legal_entity_identifier

Type Registry