On May 2, the Legal Entity Identifier Regulatory Oversight Committee (LEI ROC) published its second progress report, which included an overview of the Global Legal Entity Identifier System (GLEIS), regulatory uses of the LEI and LEI ROC’s activities. The LEI ROC’s first progress report was published on November 5, 2015.

The report highlights that the number of LEIs in issuance increased rapidly in the second half of 2017, as a result of new regulatory requirements (including the Revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II)), and the total issued now exceeds 1 million. Based on European Central Bank data, LEIs cover securities with a total value of EUR 95 trillion worldwide, as of November 2017.

The report also notes that regulatory authorities in jurisdictions represented on the LEI ROC have adopted at least 91 regulatory uses of the LEI, ranging from the optional use of an LEI to mandatory use. In Europe, MiFID II states that investment firms are unable to provide certain services to clients that do not have an LEI.

The LEI ROC proposed further potential uses of LEIs in the report that could result in benefits for both regulators and industry participants, such as using the LEI as a tool to support the use of more granular data, to assist in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, and to implement sanction regimes.

The report is available here; and the LEI ROC’s first progress report is available here.