The new standard code, to be known as a "CABRE" (CUSIP Avox Business Reference Entity identifier), will be generated and maintained for issuers, obligors and counterparties on a global basis.

The CABRE has been designed as a 10-character code that will be made available immediately to existing Avox and S&P/CUSIP customers as an adjunct to existing services. The structure will also be made available to global market participants in a variety of distribution options, including portfolio, bulk-file and web-based applications. A directory containing CABRE's and basic data for over 250,000 entities from around the world and across all industry classes will be made available in Q2, 2009.

"With so much emphasis on global counterparty risk, and the need for certainty in identifying issuers, counterparties and obligors, we feel CUSIP Global Services is uniquely positioned to assist the industry in this endeavor" says Scott Preiss, VP for CUSIP Global Services in New York. "Given their client-driven system of maintaining global entity data, Avox is an ideal partner to augment our time-tested system of unique issuer and obligor identification."

Ken Price, Chief Executive Officer of Avox stated, "We felt supporting S&P's plans to develop a global business entity identification system was a great opportunity to help drive convergence onto a common data standard. With this partnership, we will significantly grow the community of user firms that provide intelligence about changes to business entities taking place every day in the market. This crowd sourcing approach, combined with our expert data verification will significantly improve the quality and consistency of business entity data for Avox and S&P customers."

Both CUSIP Global Services and Avox have been vocal in the past about the need for a common global identification standard for entities, and have fully supported the efforts of standards bodies to provide such a common language.

Michael Atkin, Managing Director of the Enterprise Data Management Council, says "This collaboration by two leading financial information companies is an important step in getting a global standard entity identifier in place across the industry. It should help their respective clients solve immediate business entity identification challenges and pave the way for easier integration as the drive for an industry standard identifier matures. We strongly support the collaborative model for improving the quality of core reference data and applaud this initiative by Avox and S&P."