Omgeo, the global standard for post-trade efficiency, announced the availability of new Legal Entity data capture functionality in Omgeo Alert, the industry's largest and most compliant web-based global database for accurate settlement and account instructions (SSI).
With these enhancements, investment managers and broker/dealers can automatically view 23 new legal entity fields containing the names and identifiers of their counterparties, all within ALERT. The functionality was added in response to requests from market participants who, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, wanted to gain a better understanding of which legal entities they were trading with.
Avox, a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), will maintain the legal entity data that populates the additional 23 data fields including legal name, trading status, date updated, aliases, BIC, and registered and operating addresses. Ahead of the proposed implementation of regulatory requirements for a global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) standard, a field has also been created to capture and populate LEIs in ALERT.
Bill Meenaghan, Global Product Manager for ALERT at Omgeo, said: "The creation of legal entity support in ALERT is an example of Omgeo initiating practical steps towards providing ALERT clients with greater transparency in the markets."
"Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Omgeo became involved in discussions with a number of our clients who, overwhelmingly, wanted to identify ways to better understand and track the underlying legal entities for each counterparty. ALERT was enhanced in direct response to these specific and growing industry requirements."
"While this is an independent initiative, in anticipation of a mandated Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), we have added an LEI data field in accordance with regulatory requirements and in support of the LEI."
The new Omgeo ALERT legal entity fields, with data population from Avox, are subscription-based fields. For joint ALERT/Avox clients, the Avox ID (AVID) can be made available to link both the ALERT and Avox datasets together. In addition to the new legal entity fields, ALERT has also added three new general account fields for Access Code Legal Entity Identifier, Markit Entity Identifier and Large Trader ID for all ALERT users, which do not require a subscription.
*ALERT Legal Entity is an Omgeo initiative that is independent from the global Legal Entity Identifier initiative