16th June 2003  

Operations

Exchange Data International (EDI), a London-based provider of corporate actions and back-office data, has launched a counterparty information service to help firms combat discrepancies in trading caused by incorrect company names.

Traders and brokers often find the company they have traded with or in whom they have investments is not the entity they thought it was, the vendor says.

The service provides financial institu- tions with the legal names of companies as well as their ownership structure. This will help firms improve the efficiency of securities processing, better manage enterprise risk and assess total risk expo- sure, the company says.

EDI has linked up to company registration authorities such as government agencies and chambers of commerce in over 100 countries to be able to research the legal names of companies and their ownership structure, reporting the ulti- mate and intermediate owners. The research is carried out on demand.

The data can be sent in Access or Excel and in the format requested by the client. Typical fields of information requested include: Legal Name; Address; Country of Incorporation; Is issuer public or private?; Parent (Legal Name); and Ultimate Parent (Legal Name and Address).

Pricing of the service depends on the level of data required and the country from which users want the data from. The service is priced per company.

Jonathan Bloch, EDI's managing director, says a brokerage and an insurance company are trialling the service.

KirstenHyde