A joint initiative and coordinated global release by all 118 national numbering agencies (NNAs) serving the financial markets around the world has concluded with implementation of an updated ISO 6166 standard, announced the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA).
The latest version of the 22-year-old standard for the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) addresses the continuing evolution of the international capital markets with coverage of even more instrument types, including exchange-traded and OTC derivatives and structured product instruments.
“This synchronized effort by the worldwide community of ISIN issuers – that is, the National Numbering Agencies -- is another step forward in a long and successful history of enabling transparency and efficiency in local markets and through global cross-border capitalization,” says Dan Kuhnel, director of primary markets and fixed income securities at Euroclear Hong Kong and chairman of the ANNA board of directors. “Because ISIN is a ‘primary key’ element in the global market language of finance, these enhancements in the updated ISIN standard promise to further streamline recordkeeping and reporting for financial firms and regulators.”
The ISIN is the universally recognized global standard for instrument identification. Designed to uniquely identify financial instruments by key characteristics, it covers equities, debt, and other commonly issued and traded instruments, as well as supporting changes in instrument identification. To date, more than 26 million unique ISINS have been assigned to investment instruments issued in 120 national markets and traded around the world.
Adapting to changing market requirements, a revision of the ISIN standard is develop every few years by a dedicated workgroup of industry volunteers through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). ANNA, appointed as registration authority for the ISO 6166 (ISIN standard) by ISO, also produces guidelines specifying particular allocation rule scenarios linked to the standard. The updated ISIN Guidelines now also reflect the latest changes to the ISIN standard. ANNA also sponsors and oversees work groups to address implementation and technical issues that rise due to circumstances of local laws, cross-border irregularities and similar challenges.
Like other numbering standards, the ISIN is associated with instrument attribute data. ISIN reference data includes the issuer, the country or place of issuance, the type of asset, and its asset-servicing terms (as with bonds and other debt instruments). Correlating different types of identifiers and their underlying data provides significant value in terms of business management, risk analysis and regulatory analysis of issues like systemic risk. The ANNA Service Bureau, which is wholly supported by ANNA’s network of NNAs and currently houses the largest database of ISINs and related data, is in the latter stages of a comprehensive, multi-standard correlation project to support advanced recordkeeping and analysis by the global financial industry.
More information about the ISIN standard can be found at the ISIN page of ANNA’s website and at the ISO website.