The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. is apparently eager to promote a global role in developing and distributing new identification codes for legal entities.

The umbrella organization which clears and settles U.S. securities transactions has named Mark Davies to the new role of vice prseident for data business development, focusing on DTCC's involvement with legal entity identifiers or LEIs in Europe. Davies will report to Ronald Jordan, DTCC's managing director and chief data officer in New York. In a statement, DTCC describes his task as "responsible for strategy and liaison activities in Europe, that include participating in the development of distribution strategy." He will serve as the "subject matter" expert on the LEI business with regulators and industry committees.

Davies joins DTCC from Royal Bank of Scotland where from 2008 he served as the head of reference data within its shared services finance unit. He headed a global team of 90 executives and managed the legal entity database for RBS across divisions. He also managed all the datasets required for reporting in the group risk platform and set strategy for reference data involving legal entities and risk data. Among other jobs: Davies was the associate director for shared data services at Barclays Capital from 2000 to 2008 managing the group's central counterparty database. From 1998 to 2000 he was manager of client reference data and supervisor for strategic projects at CreditSuisse First Boston.

The appointment of Davies comes at a critical time in the development of the LEI as a global standard. Initially promoted by U.S. regulators as a means for the U.S. government to keep track of systemic risk, securities industry groups are trying to ensure a global consensus so regulators around the world can keep track of the activities of the same legal entities. DTCC has been tapped as the facilities manager for LEIs while the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications is the registration authority. DTCC's task as the facilities manager appears to put it in a more prominent nuts and bolts position than SWIFT in that it must validate the accuracy of the data backing the LEI through DTCC subsidiary Avox. However, the La Hulpe, Belgium-headquartered SWIFT has more global clout as a message development and network provider; it is also the registration authority for BICs- the codes which are most often used today to identify legal entities. SWIFT backed down from promoting an enhanced version of BICs as LEIs after the International Organization for Standardization vetoed that idea. ISO has agreed that new 20 alphanumeric codes are more appropriate than BICs and accredited the LEI as a global standard. The DTCC and SWIFT recently came up with a test file of 2,700 dummy LEIs with metadata so U.S. financial firms can prepare their internal systems to accept the LEIs and cross-reference them to other IDs.

Written by Chris Kentouris, Editor-in-chief (Chris can be contacted through Chris.Kentouris@hotmail.com).

Creating standardized workflow and messages related to the processing of swap transactions will top the list of initiatives for ISITC's U.S. arm which just appointed Jan Ellis Snitzer, as its new chairman for a two-year term .

BNP Paribas Securities Services has appointed Nobuya Shida as head of securities services in Japan. Shida, with 26 years’ experience in the Japanese financial industry, has been appointed to grow BNP Paribas’ securities services business in Japan.

Executive committee appointments have been announced for BATS Chi-X Europe, the new entity that will emerge as a result of BATS’ acquisition of Chi-X Europe.

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management business of State Street Corporation today appointed Michael Ho to chief investment officer for its Active Emerging Markets Equities and Global Macro capabilities.

Several Euroclear senior management changes are expected to be implemented in early 2012, once the relevant regulatory approvals are obtained.