LEI is required for activity in the foreign markets

At the G20 summit in Mexico in June 2012, the Financial Stability Board's (FSB) project to establish a Global LEI System of legal entities (GLEIS), involved in financial transactions was supported. Under this system the legal entity is assigned an international Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). Normative regulation of codes assignment and monitoring of the GLEIS system maintenance is entrusted to the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC).

Among the reasons for the creation of GLEIS are:

- the need to ensure transparency in the financial markets;

- ease of search, identification and verification of the counterparty;

- improving the format of data exchange between the participants of financial transactions;

- assessment of possible risks at transactions.

At the first stage, pre-Local operating units (pre-LOU) responsible for the assignment of pre-LEI are created in the countries of the G20. The next step will be the formation of a Central operating unit (COU) for the maintenance and support of GLEIS. By combining the local operating units and COU, the GLEIS system will be created at the final stage. As a result of a single information area formation, pre-LOU codes will receive a permanent status - LOU, and pre-codes assigned by them will become LEI codes.

CJSC National Settlement Depository Non-Banking Credit Organization was granted the official status of the local operational offices in Russia. According to the decision of the International Oversight Committee, from March 1, 2013 CJSC NSD is entitled to provide services for the assignment of pre-LEI. The assigned code is a universal identifier of the legal person and allows performing financial transactions in domestic and international market, particularly in the USA and Europe, as is recognized by all regulators and participants in the system.

According to the notification on the depository’s corporate website, pre-LEI / LEI is assigned to a legal entity only upon request, in accordance with the Rules of provision services for assignment and verification of international identification code of the legal entity. At present, 689 residents of the Russian Federation were assigned pre-LEI.

According to the Information and analytical system Globas-I, 99,99% of CJSC NSD shares belong to JOINT STOCK COMPANY MOSCOW EXCHANGE MICEX-RTS. The depositary has deal with exchange and off- exchange transactions with all types of equity securities of the Russian issuers, provides transactional banking services, maintains depository accounting of 99% of corporate bonds and provides other services.