Markit Expands the Scope of MEI, Assesses Opportunities in Counterparty Space

New York - Information provider Markit is about to start issuance of Market Entity Identitfier (MEI) codes for entities outside the syndicated loan market, the market the identifier was first launched to facilitate communication in, officials tell Inside Reference Data.

Markit issued the first MEI code in January last year, and there are now around 25,000 MEI codes to support the loan market, identifying borrowers, fund managers, funds and sub-funds. Yet the development focus is now shifting, as Markit is also looking at how the identifiers can be leveraged in the counterparty data space.

New York-based Ed Chidsey, managing director, Markit, says there has been a continuous push toward standardized entity data and identifiers in general, and the MEI will be expanded more broadly across counterparties transacting in the OTC market.

Going forward, the MEI will be used to identify entities across the Markit portfolio of products. This expanded use of MEI as the unique counterparty identifier will help to seamlessly integrate Markit services. "This is an internal effort to make more of our platforms more homogeneous and improve our clients' experience," says Chidsey.

Markit Document Exchange (MDE), which was originally used to share know-your-client documentation, has been integrated with Markit's MEI database. MDE will be utilized as an onboarding tool across Markit products, such as MarkitSERV and Markit Valuation Manager, and will facilitate the integration of MEI within these products.

This internal effort will result in the issuance of MEI codes for a large number of counterparties and will help position MEI as a key business entity identifier in the OTC market, says Chidsey.

"As the need for a standard counterparty identifier intensifies, we will have issued an MEI for most OTC counterparties," he says, explaining that Markit has introduced an MEI website where users can look up codes and use them for various purposes, such as trade execution, processing or eventually transaction reporting.

The MEI is a 10-character alphanumeric code, and the first two digits represent the jurisdiction. MEI issuance will continue throughout the year, and Markit expects to have at least 50,000 codes linked to entities represented in other Markit products.