The LOU Map of the World
To register an LEI, a company must submit a request to a Local Operating Unit or LOU. Currently there are about 500 thousand registered LEI’s but the expectation is that this will rise to 1.5 million in the next two or three years. There are 29 LOU’s in the world and although they tend toward specific regions and territories they are free to take submissions from any company anywhere in the world.
The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a project initiated by the G20 after the banking crisis of 2008. The overall aim is to define a method of identifying internationally traded finacial services companies on the basis of a single standard of definition.
This is what the LEI governing body (GLEIF) says; ‘the LEI is a 20-digit, alpha-numeric code based on the ISO 17442 standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It connects to key reference information that enables clear and unique identification of legal entities participating in financial transactions. Simply put, the publicly available LEI data pool can be regarded as a global directory, which greatly enhances transparency in the global marketplace.’
A quick look at the spread of LOU’s worldwide shows immediately how Europe has quickly established multiple LOU’s. This is perhaps due to the nature of financial services in Europe but also perhaps due to territorial diversities. In contrast there is only one LOU in South America.
Although LOU’s, by definition, provide services globally and in fact compete with each other to some extent, it seems likely that more LOU’s will be defined as the number of LEI’s grow in different territories. In fact it is not inconceivable that every sovereign territory will seek to have its own LOU and even though this runs contrary to the overall global LEI project the various influences of territoriality can not be completely ignored.
European map of individual Local Operating Units - LOU’s
Of course this map of LOU’s has only passing relevance to the map of LEI’s and although there is only one LOU in the US (there are three in Germany..) it has registered the largest number of LEI’s and is likely set to maintain this position.
The current list of LOU’s as listed by GLEIF is here below:
1. Argentina - Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina
2. Australia - APIR
3. China - People’s Bank of China
4. India - The Clearing Corporation of India
5. Japan - Tokyo Stock Exchange
6. Korea - Korea Securities Depository
7. Mexico - GS1 Mexico
8. Nigeria - Central Securities Clearing System
9. Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabian Credit Bureau
10. South Africa - Central Securities Depository
11. United States - Bloomberg
12. Croatia - Zagreb Stock Exchange
13. Czech Republic - Central Securities Depository Prague
14. Finland - Finnish Patent & Registration Office
15. Germany - Federal Gazette
16. Germany - GS1 Germany
17. Germany - WM Data Service
18. Ireland - Irish Stock Exchange
19. Italy - Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce
20. Luxembourg - Luxembourg Central Securities Depository
21. Netherlands - Business Entity Data BV
22. Netherlands - Chambers of Commerce
23. Poland - Central Securities Repository Poland
24. Russia - National Settlement Depository
25. Slovakia - Central Securities Depository of Slovakia
26. Slovenia - Central Securities Clearing Corporation
27. Spain - Ministry of Justice
28. Turkey - Takasbank
29. United Kingdom - London Stock Exchange
If you would like to learn more about the LEI project visit www.Gleif.org and of course if you wish to register an LEI then you may wish to connect with one of the LOU’s.
Our own (pTools') LEI Lexicon project can be seen at www.leilex.com and for those of you so inclined the API is at https://api.leilex.com