On Tuesday, at the A-Team’s Data Management Summit, I was on a panel titled Beyond Dodd-Frank: Managing Entity Data with the Global LEI.  My co-panelists were Scott Preiss of CUSIP Global Services, Ron Jordan of DTCC and Mark Alvarez of Interactive Data Corporation.  Sarah Underwood of A-Team Group was the moderator.

Highlights of the discussion were:

  1. Should there be more regulatory mandates for the use of LEIs.  I argued against, as it seems to be putting the cart before the horse.  More regulatory mandates risk diluting the LEI mission at this point and will also contribute to a rush to register, resulting in weak data quality.
  2. The panel agreed that the federated model will continue, rather than significant consolidation among LOUs.  However, Ron Jordan mentioned that a couple of LOUs (Norway and Luxembourg) had outsourced their registration process to the DTCC/SWIFT GMEI utility.
  3.  It was generally agreed that the LEI was useful for transaction reporting, but as an “uber-identifier” that would replace other identifiers in the market there was a very long way to go.

In a room of about 60 people, the moderator asked “How many people are actually using LEIs on a regular basis?”  Only a couple of hands went up. This could be a reflection of the DMS audience and/or a reflection of how narrow usage of the LEI currently is.