The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) announces that it has expanded the scope of its collaboration with Swift by providing certification for the mapping of the Market Identifier Code (MIC) to the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI).

The resulting launch of a new open-source file mapping the MIC to the LEI will further enable market participants that use GLEIF and / or Swift data, such as financial institutions and public authorities involved in risk analysis and market monitoring, to link and cross-reference key entity identifiers, free of charge. This will ease the process of gathering, aggregating and reconciling counterparty information based on interoperability across parallel identity platforms.

This collaboration between GLEIF and Swift, the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services, builds on a cooperation established in 2018 to link the Business Identifier Code (BIC) to the LEI. The MIC is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) code used to process and clear trades and is gaining traction as the securities industries move toward straight-through-processing.

“This expanded collaboration with Swift continues to enhance transparency and provide identity management efficiencies across global markets,” comments Stephan Wolf, CEO at GLEIF. “The mapping of open LEI data to the MIC enables market participants to efficiently and accurately gather and cross-check counterparty information, decreasing the cost and potential for manual error. The LEI is a critical data connector globally and GLEIF’s continued pursuit of enhanced interoperability between the LEI and other identifier systems worldwide helps ensure that the highest quality entity identification reference data is obtainable to all. This makes it easier to conduct compliance, KYC, regulatory reporting, and due diligence.”

Anne Suprenant, Head of Standards Registration Authority at Swift, said: “Collaborating with GLEIF on the certification of mapping the MIC with the LEI, is a significant milestone. Following the success of the BIC-mapping exercise, we have now extended the benefits of cross-identifier mapping to a broader audience. We now offer entity identification efficiencies that support greater trust and transparency for global market participants.”

Following the successful certification process, GLEIF will publish open-source relationship files monthly, in a CSV format, which will map the MIC to the LEI. Currently, more than two million LEIs have been issued to legal entities globally. Of the approximate 2,600 MICs assigned to date, currently approximately 50% of them pertain to organizations that are legal entities or foreign branches and therefore, qualify for the mapping against LEIs. In the first published file, there are about 600 mapping pairs. This is an important foundation on which to grow this industry resource.