Commonwealth Bank of Australia becomes LEI Validation Agent

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the latest Financial Institution to become a VA (Validation Agent). This comes as a further initiative in Australia to drive LEI adoption, along with OTC (Over The Counter) derivative transaction reporting guideline updates from the ASIC (Australian Securities & Investment Comission).

GLEIF’s Validation Agent Framework enables financial institutions regulated to conduct KYC (Know Your Customer) and entity validation to register and manage LEIs for their clients in cooperation with LOUs.

Validation Agents can leverage their ‘business-as-usual’ client identification procedures in Know Your Customer (KYC), client onboarding, or standard client refresh update processes.

Stephan Wolf, CEO of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), commented:

“The continued expansion of the Validation Agent network further demonstrates the value derived for both the agent organisation and their clients, helping to deliver trust with increased simplicity, convenience, and expediency.

And with industry momentum for the LEI gathering pace across the globe, GLEIF fully endorses and welcomes CBA’s commitment to proactively support its clients in getting ahead of the LEI adoption curve.

”This also made it difficult for banks and other institutions to onboard new clients as KYC practices were relying on old and unconsolidated data.

Further local initiatives include updated to OTC (Over The Counter) Derivatives Trading guidelines imposed by ASIC, which come into force in October 2024. 

This update will see the phasing out of commonly used alternative identifiers auch as the AVID code and the Business Identifier Code (BIC) code in favour of the LEI. 

This will increase transparency and bring further standardisation to the markets aligning with global practices, which ultimately reduces costs and addresses the issues surrounding identifying smaller transactional counterparties. 

This move positionions The Commonwealth Bank of Australia in a position to seamlessly provide LEIs to Australian entities that fall under the remit of this ASIC guideline update and other growing and upcoming global LEI regualtions across Asia and Europe.

Upcoming LEI Regulations & UPDATES 2024

• Dodd-Frank Act (Hedge Fund Advisors)
• European Single Access Point (ESAP)
• FIEA: Financial Instruments And Exchange Act (Japan)
• AML/CFT: EU Cryptocurrency Proposed Regulations