Canadian banking group Desjardins has signed a three year contract with London-based CounterpartyLink for the provision of legal entity data.
The data will initially be used by Desjardins to ensure that a single and unique legal entity identifier is assigned across all functional departments of the bank.
CounterpartyLink says the data will then be integrated into a central management system, which is currently being rolled out and is slated to go live in 2008 and early 2009.
The data will then be available to Desjardins' front, middle and back offices across multiple business lines active on financial markets.
CounterpartyLink provides 94 fields of validated data for each entity. The data is updated on a daily basis for changes that result from corporate actions and other notifications.
Pierre Beaudoin, senior advisor, market and insurance risk management, Desjardins, says: "We chose CounterpartyLink not only because they have the coverage and data fields required, but also because their data collection and validation standards are designed to meet stringent international regulatory requirements."
CounterpartyLink, says Desjardins is its first client in Canada.