Regulators and market participants agree accurate identification of legal entities and their beneficial owners are critical elements in monitoring and managing systemic risk; deadlines for compliance with FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and the launch of a global LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) system are approaching fast. CounterpartyLink's extended data is providing customers with essential information and adds considerable value in their preparation for the next round of regulations as well as the ongoing KYC/AML (Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering) compliance.

James Redfern, Managing Director of CounterpartyLink, says: "Due to multiple regulations in place now and on the horizon, we are seeing significant demand from existing and prospective customers for greater depth and granularity around beneficial ownerships of legal entities and their identification. The timing is important for our customers who need to be able to meet their current FATCA and risk requirements. We have included this enhanced depth of data as part of our latest product, which already includes the Provisional LEI, or CICI; we will of course continue to update these as they are issued. Customers can now search in real-time for entities using the Provisional LEI/CICI and access evidence-based, primary source data on over 100 data fields researched independently by CounterpartyLink, which we continually maintain to the highest standards required by the KYC processes". He adds, "These enhancements are part of our extensive programme of product devel opment and we will be announcing a number of new features over the coming months."

This announcement follows CounterpartyLink's recent release of CPL Online, the new internet-based application, which allows instant access, retrieval and storage of current legal entity data and access to over 2 million documentary pieces of evidence, gathered in over 190 jurisdictions. CPL Online is increasingly used for client on-boarding as it enables users to instantly retrieve the required data and also to verify the data by direct reference to the original, authoritative publishers.

Researched independently by CounterpartyLink and continually maintained to regulatory standards, the newly-added data fields now include expanded ownership information, which has been increased from the previous threshold of 25% (as determined by the 3rd EU AML Directive), to a new threshold of 10% for all entities researched and maintained on the database.