The Bank of Russia notifies eurobond issuers of the need to receive a LEI code

All eurobond issuers should receive a LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) code as the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II/MiFIR) becomes effective. Starting from 3 January 2018, Europe-based trading platforms will be obliged to collect information about LEI codes of all market participants and issuers of traded securities. Thereby, corporate securities listed in the European markets which lack the LEI code will not be eligible for trading on these markets.

What is the LEI code?

The LEI code is a unique international legal entity identifier assigned in compliance with ISO 17442 international standard. The LEI code allows receiving core information about the organisation (e.g. its jurisdiction, registered address, titles in different languages) from a freely accessed centralised base. The LEI code allows faultless identification of the contracting party in, among other things, cross-border transactions. To date, more than 500 thousand LEI codes have been assigned worldwide. For more information about LEI codes refer to the websites of the LEI Regulatory Oversight Committee (www.leiroc.org) and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (www.gleif.org).

How to receive the LEI code?

The LEI code can be assigned by a respective licensed organisation, a local operational division of the LEI system. For the list of organisations, refer to the GLEIF website (www.gleif.org). The local operational division in Russia is NPO JSC NSD (National Settlement Depository).