THE LEI (LEGAL ENTITY IDENTIFIER) IS A 20-DIGIT, GLOBALLY UNIQUE IDENTIFIER FOR COMPANIES CREATED AS LEGAL ENTITIES
LEI is the de-facto standard for identifying banks and companies actively involved in the financial industry. Regulators across the globe increasingly require financial market participants to use LEI. Moreover, the recent European regulations (particularly MiFiDII/MiFiR) and the new Financial Transparency Act introduced by the US Congress in March, 2017 guarantees the continuing fundamental role of LEI’s in the financial industry.
Leaders such as the G20, FSB (Financial Stability Board) and many regulators require businesses to acquire LEI as soon as possible. As such, LEI adoption among firms continues to increase on a daily basis. The GLEIF (Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) supports this increased adoption by continuing to focus on further optimising the quality, reliability and usability of LEI data.