The list of ELF codes is based on the ISO 20275 « Financial Services – Entity Legal Forms (ELF) » standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization. The standard was published in July 2017. As ISO states, « It specifies the elements of a single system for identifying the different legal forms in a jurisdiction. The aim is to allow the codification of legal forms within courts and thus facilitate the classification of legal persons according to their legal form. The ISO standard states that the legal form of the entity refers to « the type of entity that considers an organization within the framework of the legal or regulatory system under which it is established. » « Regulators and market participants have recognized the need to identify the legal forms of companies both nationally and uniformly in global markets and have called for a standard to be developed to address this need. This ISO 20275 standard responds to the need for structured identification of the legal forms of entities in order, among other things, to classify companies according to the nature of their legal incorporation. GLEIF monitors LEI issuers` compliance with the list of ELF codes when an ELF code is available for a particular legal entity form in a jurisdiction. The LEI Common Data File (CDF) format defines how LEI issuers report their LEI and Tier 1 reference data; that is, the business card information of a legal entity that answers the question « who is who ». The structure of the ELF Code has been adopted in the current version of the LEI CDF format. All legal forms of companies are only available in the national language(s). Countries with several official languages (e.g. Switzerland, Belgium, Canada) declared their legal form in all official languages. In addition to the above cases, GLEIF has introduced the « List of Codes of Accepted Legal Jurisdictions », which indicates the accepted values for the « Legal Jurisdiction » field in the LEI file format. Transfer your LEI code under the administration of India LEI, the official registration agent for India.
Our customers benefit from automatic data updates, fast customer service and secure payments. India LEI and our group companies are trusted partners for many financial institutions around the world. The integration of ELF codes into the standardized set of legal entity reference data available in the Global LEI Index further enhances the business card information contained in each Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) record. Richer data provides an improved user experience as it helps categorize legal entities and thus provides better insight into the global market. LEI issuers refer to the ELF code in their LEI issuance processes and reports. ISO points out that understanding the legal form of a company « is an important part of financial services transactions. The establishment of a business relationship requires distinguishing the type of business with which the transactions are carried out. The parties (and their organizational structure) involved in financial transactions must be identified in these transactions.
Standardising the legal or organisational structure will promote flexibility and allow for a better understanding of risk exposure and access to capital. ISO has established a maintenance agency relevant to ISO 20275 and consists of members of ISO technical committee 68 Financial services. The Swiss Association for Standardization (SNV) provides the secretariat for the maintenance agency. The SNV entrusted GLEIF with « the implementation of the Secretariat of the Maintenance Agency » and the execution of related tasks. GLEIF is responsible, among other things, for identifying the existing legal forms of legal entities and assigning a unique ELF code to each legal form of the company in accordance with ISO 20275. More information about ISO standards maintenance agencies can be found here. A legal form has only one meaning according to local law, so an English translation for all legal forms in all countries would cause confusion.