Sponsored by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the US Treasury's Office of Financial Reporting, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and others.

http://www.dtcc.com/products/dataservices/lei.php

A Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a unique ID associated with a single corporate entity. Although no common entity ID convention exists today, a range of regulatory initiatives are driving the creation of universal LEI standard for financial markets worldwide. A key goal of the LEI is to have it "persist over the life of an entity regardless of corporate actions or other business or structural changes".

A global solution to provide Legal Entity Identifiers for all parties to financial contracts was proposed by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and SWIFT, and consequently recommended by the umbrella Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) trade association. In this solution, SWIFT would act as the registration authority, acting on behalf of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to assign the ISO 17442 LEI standard. DTCC would act as the facilities manager which will receive, review and publish entity information. In the United States, Dodd-Frank mandated initiatives to create standard LEIs. The main effort is being driven by the Office of Financial Research (OFR), with the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC) also issuing LEI standards around derivatives. The OFR has issued a statement regarding its preference to adopt through rulemaking a universal standard for identifying parties to financial contracts that is established and implemented by private industry and other relevant stakeholders through a consensus process.

All parties to financial contracts.

OFR Policy Statement on Legal Entity Identifiers LEI Primer Summary of ISO LEI Standard Legal Entity Identifier Resource Center (SIFMA) LEI Timeline of Major Events LEI Readiness: Instant Integration with Alacra Concordance - A NEW Alacra Whitepaper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Entity_Identification_for_Financial_Contracts