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The LEI in Numbers: Momentum Across the Global LEI System Continues

Growth in LEI adoption, renewals and the implementation of new data formats combine to promote greater trust and transparency across the global marketplace.


Author: Stephan Wolf

  • Date: 2023-07-18
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The Global LEI Foundation (GLEIF) is proud of its ongoing transparency initiatives, including its open approach to providing unrestricted access to the latest LEI data from around the world with the Quarterly LEI System Business Reports, which are made publicly available free of charge. Through this ‘LEI in Numbers’ blog series, GLEIF aims to highlight key data from the latest report, explaining trends and profiling successes from the global LEI rollout.

The latest report, covering Q2 2023, highlights that approximately 63,000 LEIs were issued globally throughout the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the total active LEI population was around 2.31 million. This represents a quarterly growth rate of 2.8%.

For a further summary of the past quarter’s data, the below infographic contains the key statistics from Q2 2023.

So-called ‘competitive markets’ refer to those with over 1,000 LEIs, based on the number of LEI issuers providing services in the jurisdiction. The most competitive markets are those with the most LEI issuers per jurisdiction, with similar market share, and vice versa for the least competitive markets.

Regulatory momentum continued to drive LEI growth in Q2, with Saudi Arabia (12.1%) and India (8.3%) once again maintaining the highest jurisdictional LEI growth rates. For the first time, this was followed by Sweden with a 7.8% increase, which can be primarily attributed to a change in practice by Finansinspektionen, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA), regarding LEI obligation under the European Union’s revised Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). As part of the new requirements that promise to promote increased trust and transparency, particularly across the insurance industry, “all legal persons who trade in endowment insurance need to be identified through [the] LEI as the decision-maker for the transaction.” Türkiye (5.4%) and Iceland (5.1%) comprised the remaining top growth jurisdictions.

The overall LEI renewal rate continues to stabilize and, in Q2 2023, increased to 59.4%, with quarterly renewals rising in EU jurisdictions to 63.9%. Renewals in non-EU jurisdictions decreased marginally to 51.8%. Hungary demonstrated the highest renewal rate (94.2%), followed by Japan (91.3%), Finland (86.7%), Liechtenstein (82.1%), and India (80.3%).

During our last quarterly report, we noted how one year had passed since the implementation of the Regulatory Oversight Committee’s policies on new LEI data formats and explored how the Global LEI Index had seen significant and sustained growth in reported data across the formats. Happily, this growth trend has continued. At the end of Q2 2023, over 5,100 entities were identified as government entities and 32 as international organizations (up from 5,000 and 30, respectively, in Q1 2023). In addition, over 123,000 legal entities reported fund relationship structures, an increase of over 16,000 on the previous quarter.

For the full report which includes further detail on the status of LEI issuance and growth potential, the level of competition between LEI issuing organizations in the Global LEI System and Level 1 and 2 reference data, please visit the Global LEI System Business Reports page.

Readers to note that, in March 2022, the CDF formats were updated based on the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC) policies: Legal Entity Events (formerly referred to as “Corporate Actions") and Data History in the Global LEI System, Policy on Fund Relationships and Guidelines for the registration of Investment Funds in the Global LEI System, and LEI Eligibility for General Government Entities Guidance Document.

If you are interested in reviewing the latest daily LEI data, our Global LEI System Statistics Dashboard contains daily statistics on the total and active number of LEIs issued. This feature now enables any user to review historical data by geography, increasing transparency on the overall progress of the LEI.

For further detail or to access historical data, please visit the Global LEI System Business Report Archive. We look forward to sharing our progress each quarter as we continue to drive LEI adoption in 2023.

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About the author:

Stephan Wolf is the CEO of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). Since March 2024, he has led the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)’s Industry Advisory Board (IAB) of the Digital Standards Initiative, the global platform for digital trade standards alignment, adoption, and engagement. Before he was appointed as Chair, he had been serving as Vice-Chair of the IAB since 2023. In the same year, he was elected to the Board of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Germany.

Between January 2017 and June 2020, Mr. Wolf was Co-convener of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 FinTech Technical Advisory Group (ISO TC 68 FinTech TAG). In January 2017, Mr. Wolf was named one of the Top 100 Leaders in Identity by One World Identity. He has extensive experience in establishing data operations and global implementation strategies. He has led the advancement of key business and product development strategies throughout his career. Mr. Wolf co-founded IS Innovative Software GmbH in 1989 and served first as its managing director. He was later named spokesman of the executive board of its successor, IS.Teledata AG. This company ultimately became part of Interactive Data Corporation, where Mr. Wolf held the role of CTO. Mr. Wolf holds a university degree in business administration from J. W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.


Tags for this article:
Global LEI System Business Reports, Global LEI Index, Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), LEI Issuers (Local Operating Units - LOUs), LEI Renewal, Open Data, Data Management, Level 1 / Business Card Data (Who is Who), Level 2 / Relationship Data (Who Owns Whom)