The Anna Service Bureau (ASB), operated on behalf of the Association of National Numbering Agencies (Anna) by Telekurs Financial and Standard & Poor's Cusip Service Bureau, is to provide financial instrument listing information related to a security's Official Place of Listing (Opol).
The ASB says the decision to link the ISO-standard Isin security identifier with the ISO-standard MIC market identifier brings closure to industry debate on the requirement for unique instrument identification.
Recent industry discussions have been held within, among others, the Reference Data Coalition (Redac) and Reference Data User Group (RDUG), to use various identifiers (such as LSE's Sedol) linked to Isin to achieve more efficient cross-border trading.
Under the new arrangement, Telekurs Financial will provide Opol-related information linking MIC data to the two million Isins within the ASB database.
Michael Atkin, VP and director of SIIA's Financial Information Services Division (FISD), applauded the initiative. "The timeliness, accuracy and integrity of global reference data is an important step forward toward improving the efficiency of securities processing," he says. "We are encouraged by this action and look forward to continuing to work with the ASB to meet the ongoing challenges associated with global trading."