The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced today it is working with Markit to address a critical need in the global syndicated loan market and has adopted Markit's new entity identifier system for loans processed by Loan/SERV, DTCC's suite of services for the syndicated loan market.
According to leading industry trade groups in Europe and North America, the inconsistent use and slow industry uptake of standard, unique identifiers have unnecessarily perpetuated operational risks in this market. The collaboration between Markit and DTCC's Loan/SERV marks a significant effort to remedy these deficiencies and enhance accuracy and efficiency in the processing of syndicated loans.
Because Markit's entity identifiers undergo a stringent validation process prior to loan issuance, use of the identifiers will enable Loan/SERV to perform position reconciliations using verified entities. Prior to this, obtaining reconciliation information from the agent banks was a complicated, manual process.
"Collaboration is the key to bringing change to the loan market," said Marc Romain, Managing Director, Barclays Capital. "The use of Markit's identifiers with DTCC's services brings together two foundational components of a universal identification system for the loan market."
Loan/SERV is an evolving suite of automated and value-added services for the syndicated loan market. The Loan/SERV Reconciliation Service and Loan/SERV Messaging Service, launched in fourth-quarter 2008, rely on the use of standard identifiers to define specific loans and market participants.
Markit introduced loan entity identifiers in 2008 as part of a broad identification system for the loan market. Working in collaboration with Standard & Poor's (S&P) and CUSIP Global Services, Markit issued the first validated entity identifiers in early 2009 to improve transparency and efficiency in the syndicated loan market.
Joe Widner, Managing Director at Markit, said: "We're excited about working with DTCC to promote straight-through processing in the syndicated loan market. Use of a standard identifier system will improve accuracy and operational efficiency in the market."
"A readily available and uniform identifier scheme is central to the provision of our automated services. We believe that Markit's entity identifiers will help the market move to standardization and are delighted to be able to utilize the identifiers for the benefit of our customers," said Chris Childs, DTCC vice president, Global Loans Product Management.
Loan/SERV is a service of DTCC Solutions LLC, a subsidiary of DTCC.