October 15, 2024 - The LSTA together with 10 other trade associations have filed a request for extension of the comment deadline on the proposed FDTA standards. This request – which has been echoed by at least five other sets of industry participants and trade associations – asks for a 60-day extension of the current October 21st deadline.
The FDTA was signed into law on December 23, 2022, and directs nine federal agencies to promote the interoperability of financial regulatory data. In August, the SEC, federal banking agencies, Treasury and others proposed joint standards to implement the FDTA. While the explicit scope of the FDTA is relatively narrow and covers only regulatory reporting, industry participants strongly believe that they need more time to assess the practical implications of the proposal.
As we have previously reported, the proposed standards, among other things, select the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) as the common entity identifier for in-scope reporting and the Object Management Group’s Financial Instrument Global Identifier (FIGI) for financial instruments, like securities and loans. In urging the agencies to extend the comment deadline, the LSTA and its peers noted that FIGI is not used broadly in systems today. Market participants need time to familiarize themselves with FIGI and confirm that FIGI has important identifier attributes, such as fungibility and whether it is open source in practice, and analyze the cost and benefits of the proposal.
We shall see whether the agencies grant additional time. In the meantime, the LSTA is assessing the implications of the proposed standards and developing its own substantive response. If anyone is interested in participating in those discussions, please contact Ellen Hefferan or Tess Virmani.
