First South African LEI issuer endorsed 08 February 2016Johannesburg Reporter: Stephanie Palmer
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Strate has become the first institution to provide legal entity identifier (LEI) services in South Africa, having received endorsement from the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC).
As a licensed central securities depository and provider of post-trade services for financial markets, Strate will be able to register LEI codes locally, as well as viewing, searching, renewals, challenges, and porting of codes.
The new service is in anticipation of stricter global regulatory rules in the future. In order to be endorsed as an LEI issuer, Strate successfully met a set of qualifying criteria set by the ROC.
Strate CEO Monica Singer said: “Strate is honoured to have been endorsed as an issuer of LEIs. With this new offering, we are able to expand our product base to the market by providing the local market with the much needed LEI services.”
The LEI system creates unique codes for identification of legally independent entities across global financial markets. According to Strate, 150 companies in South Africa already have functioning LEI codes, granted through international providers.
Once an LEI code is assigned, it cannot be reassigned to any other company. Equally, once a company is assigned a code, it cannot be assigned another.
This is intended to help regulators to monitor and analyse threats to financial stability, leading to better risk management and transparency. It could also help improve internal management of operational risks, and lead to more efficient collection, cleaning and reporting of data.
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