CUSIP Global Services and Avox Limited Launch Business Entity Identifier Service

LONDON and NEW YORK, Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- CUSIP Global Service (CGS), managed by Standard & Poor's on behalf of the American Bankers Association, and Avox Limited, a majority-owned subsidiary of the Deutsche Borse Group, announced the launch of the CABRE Directory Service.  The service is a combined effort by CGS and Avox to provide a universal identification system for global business entities. The CABRE Directory uses a new standard code developed by CGS and Avox that identifies Issuers, Obligors and Counterparties on a global basis.  

"CABRE" is an acronym for CUSIP Avox Business Reference Entity identifier and has been designed to address market need for the lack an accepted universal identification system.

"With regulatory oversight continuing to focus on single name exposure and the need to identify issuers, counterparties and obligors, interest in the CABRE has increased since CGS and Avox announced their partnership last year.  The financial industry recognizes CGS' extensive classification expertise and the value of Avox's validation processes and methodology," says Scott Preiss, VP for CUSIP Global Services in New York.  "Given their client-driven system of maintaining global entity data, Avox is an ideal partner to augment our time-tested system of unique issuer and obligor identification."

The CABRE has been designed as a 10-character code that contains the 2-character ISO domicile code based on the location of the entity and embeds the CUSIP Issuer number, when available.  The service will be offered to global market participants in a bulk-file format. This initial offering contains CABREs, Avox IDs and location data for over 250,000 entities from around the world and across all industry classes.  The goal for CGS and Avox is to identify every institution involved in the lifecycle of a financial instrument.

Ken Price, Chief Executive Officer of Avox stated, "The launch of the CABRE Directory coupled with the data verification expertise within Avox create the foundation of a system that will grow exponentially over the next few years. The availability of a CABRE for each entity location will ultimately help our clients manage diverse areas of their organizations, such as financial controls, risk management, anti-money laundering and operations.  With this partnership, we can leverage the community of user firms that provide intelligence about changes to business entities taking place every day in the market."

CUSIP Global Services and Avox support the development of an ISO standard that seeks to develop a common language for global identification of entities but see a near-term need to replace the array of proprietary codes that are currently used by counterparties.

About CUSIP Global Services

For 40 years CUSIP Global Services has provided a unique common language for identifying financial instruments across institutions, exchanges and nations, enabling financial services firms to benefit from improved operating efficiencies and substantially reduced administrative costs. The CUSIP® database contains issuer, issue, and entity identifiers, standardized descriptions and related data for more than 8.4 million financial instruments. Coverage includes: corporate, government, municipal and international securities, IPO's, preferred stock, funds, CDs and competitive/negotiated deals. CUSIP Global Services continually meets the markets' need for innovation, most recently with the creation of a standard entity identifier, CABRE, while providing global support for the growing markets.  CUSIP Global Services is managed on behalf of the American Bankers Association by Standard & Poor's. For more information, visit www.cusip.com.

About Avox Limited

Avox Limited utilises an entirely new approach to validating, correcting and enriching business entity data. The firm has established a shared pool of business entity data regularly contributed by a growing number of clients including SWIFT, Allianz, Citi, Barclays, Nomura and Standard Bank of South Africa. This industry data is combined with up-to-date content from other authoritative sources including regulators, business registries and company filings. Changes made by any of Avox's clients to a data record are immediately revalidated by an Avox analyst and, if proven correct, they are broadcast, complete with a full audit trail, to all other clients holding the same record. The data in Avox includes corporate hierarchies, address information, industry sector codes, company identifiers, regulatory content and links to issued securities. Avox has offices in London, New York, Paris, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo and Wrexham (Wales). Avox is a majority-owned subsidiary of the Deutsche Borse Group, one of the world's largest financial exchange organisations. For more information, please visit www.avox.info.

About The American Bankers Association

The American Bankers Association brings together banks of all sizes and charters into one association. ABA works to enhance the competitiveness of the nation's banking industry and strengthen America's economy and communities. Its members – the majority of which are banks with less than $125 million in assets – represent over 95 percent of the industry's $13.3 trillion in assets and employ over 2 million men and women. For more information, please visit www.aba.com.

SOURCE CUSIP Global Service (CGS)