New eligibility criteria for securities where Clearstream Banking S.A. and/or Euroclear Bank NV/SA are the issuer CSD
Clearstream Banking1 informs customers that the Central Securities Depositaries Regulation (“CSDR”) requires that CSDs in the European Union that act as an issuer CSD for a security, obtain and store the Legal Entity Identifier (“LEI”) of each issuer.
The ICSDs will therefore require a valid LEI for issuers of securities for which the ICSDs act as an issuer CSD as from Tuesday, 2 January 20182.
The LEI is a unique code based on ISO 17442 standards that allows the identification of legal entities in global financial markets and aims to create greater transparency through a publicly available data pool.
Requirements for issuers
As of:
Today
- the LEI of the issuer must be provided by the issuers and their intermediaries if their securities have been accepted in the past and will not mature by Tuesday, 2 January 2018.
Tuesday, 2 January 2018:
- the LEI of the issuer will be requested for newly issued securities but will not be made mandatory for eligibility.
Monday, 2 April 2018:
- the LEI of the issuer will be requested for newly issued securities and will be a mandatory eligibility criteria, meaning that issuers and their intermediaries will have to provide the ICSDs with a valid LEI before a security can be accepted by the ICSDs.
LEI status
The LEI must:
- be provided per legal entity. Specifically, for funds this means that the LEI will have to be provided at sub-fund level.
- be current. The LEI should be valid and have a status of "Issued", "Pending Transfer" or "Pending Archival". If the LEI is not provided for the correct legal entity or does not have the correct status, the LEI will be considered as invalid and the security will not be accepted in the ICSDs.
- be renewed annually. This is an easy process that you can do online.
How to obtain an LEI
Obtaining an LEI is simple and inexpensive.
An LEI can be requested from the LuxCSD LEI Service team at lei.service@luxcsd.com.
The multilingual team will collect all of the information required to issue an LEI, making the process straightforward and ensuring that all individual questions are answered.
LEI formats and descriptions for issuers can be found on the following web page:
https://www.gleif.org/en/about-lei/how-to-get-an-lei-find-lei-issuing-organizations
How to provide us with your LEI
Issuers can either send a screenshot or a copy of the registration from the GLEIF website or in the prospectus to the following address:
fundacceptance@clearstream.com (for Collective Investment Vehicles)3
OSS.Securities.Data@clearstream.com (for non-funds)
Please use the subject “LEI delivery” and provide the Issuer name / Issuer country code / Issuer LEI.
Further information
We continue to analyse the EPIM impacts and will communicate further information at a later stage.
For further information, please contact Clearstream Banking Client Services or your Relationship Officer.
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1. Clearstream Banking refers to Clearstream Banking S.A., registered office at 42, avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg, and registered with the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register under number B-9248.
2. This requirement does not replace or supersede any other obligations issuers must meet for providing LEIs to other parties, for example requests from trading venues under MiFID II must also be met and within the timeline that is stipulated by the exchange or MTF.
3. For Collective Investment Vehicles (CIVs), the LEI details should be sent by email to fundacceptance@clearstream.com together with the remaining required documentation for ISIN issuance and acceptance (for example, final prospectus, launch price, etc.).
Full information is available on the ISIN Issuance web page in the Operational Guidelines for Investment Fund Shares.