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.

Russia is extremely heterogeneous country: whatever parameter is used at comparing of its regions, they will all be different from each other. The territory, climatic conditions, ethnic composition, economic potential and level of social development - all these parameters are different.

However, there is a need to understand the specificity of each subject of the federation, in determining the amount of the investment, demographic and consumer potential, the degree of business representation. For these purposes the Information agency Credinform has prepared a "Rating of socio-economic development of the regions".

The statistical data collected by our experts are quite different in each region, due to the heterogeneity of the territories. Bringing them to the standardized indicators (points) helps to get the generalized result, which will give an objective picture of regional development and allow comparison of the republic, territory, region, autonomous regions, and federal cities with each other.

The bases of the rating consist of 15 indicators best reflecting the current socio-economic situation in each of the 85 Russian regions. This is information on the demographics, level of wages, incomes of regional budgets and size of the GRP (gross regional product) per capita, inflation, investments, retail turnover, number of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, etc. (see Table 1).

Table 1. Indicators used to compile the rating of the regions; minimum and maximum values.

To assign the region of a numerical point for each of the 15 indicators, the data were ranked by decrease / increase of their numeric values. For example, the inflation rate was ranked from the lowest to the highest value, while the index of industrial production - from the highest to the lowest.

The total index of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation subjects was calculated by summing up the points for all indicators.

Eventually three groups of territories under the following conditional names were drawn: "Regions of the first group" (from the 1st to 30th place), "Regions of the second group" (from 31st to 60th place) and "Regions of the third group"(from 61st on the 85th place).

Expectedly, the "Regions of the first group" are areas with the major sectors of the Russian economy: oil and gas, mining, agriculture, as well as the capital cities (Moscow and Saint-Petersburg). The level of social and economic development in these regions is higher than the average around the country.

The first place in the national rating is taken by Moscow (1091 points). With the exception of high inflation and the reduction of the index of industrial production, the capital shows the great potential both in demographics (ongoing growth of the population, high life expectancy), and in the development of the regional economy in general. The highest number of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, the highest budget revenues per capita, the lowest unemployment level in the country are recorded in the capital.

The Republic of Tatarstan takes the second place (1046 points) having high values of all 15 assessment indicators.

Saint Petersburg is on the third place (1027 points), and as well as Moscow, is lagging behind in terms of higher inflation and lower industrial production index.

Table 2. "Regions of the first group". Top-10 of the RF subjects with the best level of socio-economic development

The "Regions of the second group" are subjects, demonstrating the best values of one indicators and unsatisfactory of other.

For example, the Chukotka autonomous okrug (595 points) has one of the lowest levels of inflation in the country, the highest level of wages paid, high budget revenues and volume of the GRP per capita, in the background of "catastrophic" demographic processes: Chukotka has one of the worst indicators of life expectancy, total population, and the relative increase in population. Thus, high income today does not make this harsh land attractive for living, as it was in the Soviet period. The romance of the northern territories development has gone.

On the contrary, the Republic of Dagestan (697 points) with a relatively low level of economic development shows good demographic data, including for life expectancy, which is typical for the whole Caucasus.

The "Regions of the third group" are entities of Russia with the worst values of the general index of socio-economic development. New regions of the Republic of Crimea (468 points) and Sevastopol (390 points) were also included in this group.

It is interesting, that last year Sevastopol showed the highest relative increase in population among all the regions of Russia, but poor economic figures has not yet allowed this region to rise above the 75th place of the rating.

The Republic of Crimea has low values of the GRP and budget revenues per capita. Also, the highest value of core inflation dynamics is recorded. All these put the Republic on the 69th place of the national rating.

Kurgan region (298 points) closes the final table with the smallest composite index. The region scored the minimum points on all key indicators.

Table 3. "Regions of the third group". Top-10 of the RF subjects with the worst level of socio-economic development

The presented rating largely explains the budget, migration and investment attractiveness of the Russian regions, and their image ("bad" - "good") among the population. Migratory and financial flows go to the conditionally "promising" areas to the development prejudice of other regions of the Russian Federation.

This situation is associated with the policy of level equalization of budget financing through intergovernmental transfers, subsidies, grants. Such actions lead to two paradoxical results: the Federation accumulates tax revenues in a single center, and the regions in their turn expect the budget funds inflow without efforts to their own socio-economic development. Hence, there is a significant predominance of the recipient regions over the donor regions. The same applies to the local authorities, which on paper are endowed with a wide list of powers, but there is often no funds for their implementation. Excessive centralization leads to obvious distortions in the development of the country in general. The government should seek to balance the interests of the regions by providing them more autonomy and financial resources without compromising the integrity.

Appendix. Rating of socio-economic development of the region

Table 4. "Regions of the first group". The first 30 subjects of the Russian Federation in terms of socio-economic development

Table 5. "Regions of the second group". Subjects of the RF from 31st to 60st places in terms of socio-economic development

Table 6. "Regions of the second group". Subjects of the RF from 61st to 85st places in terms of socio-economic development