Industry looks to DSB for additional use cases for OTC ISINs

Following extensive consultations with industry which began earlier this year in May, ending July 27th, the Derivatives Service Bureau (DSB), has today announced the publication of their Industry Consultation Report, August 2018.

This report comprehensively captures industry feedback, and documents a significant call from industry for the DSB to create additional use cases for ISINs on OTC Derivatives.

As well as the industry’s calls for additional use cases for ISINs, as a direct result of consultations the DSB will also be implementing changes to the DSB Product Committee, to ensure for even broader industry participation and engagement. These changes will be complemented by further improved service levels, which will increase hours of operation to 24 x 6.5, and publication of monthly ISIN analytics as the DSB continues to improve its transparency and accountability model. The DSB has integrated industry feedback into the Consultation Report, which will be a benchmark going forward for further ISIN development and DSB governance.

The DSB is founded by the Association of Numbering Agencies (ANNA) to facilitate the allocation and maintenance of International Securities Identification Numbers (ISINs) for OTC Derivatives. With industry collaboration at its core, this latest DSB consultation called for detailed industry comment on a broad range of topics, including revision of user categories and the fee model, changes to DSB functionality, service levels and access and user agreements.

Emma Kalliomaki, Managing Director of ANNA and the DSB, said, “The DSB welcomes this high level of industry engagement and enthusiasm for driving change as we navigate numbering of OTC Derivatives together. We are listening intently to industry opinion, and for the most part, the sentiment has now shifted to exploring how to move forward with additional use cases to bring more ISIN efficiency that the industry needs. We take our role as governance of OTC Derivative ISINs very seriously, and we are excited to continue to find ways that ISINs and the DSB can help the market.”

Malavika Solanki, a member of the DSB Management Team, said, “We base our decisions on the industry, and the industry is telling us that they want to get more involved, which is great news for us. There will be some changes to the operating model of the Product Committee and its size, which will make it even easier to engage with the DSB and discuss how we can work together to find solutions which will continue to benefit the market as a whole. Industry feedback has also resulted in the recent introduction of a change request process to allow users to directly feed into the product evolution process. So we would encourage those interested to contact us and get involved.”

The Consultation questions were shared with all 373 organisations in the DSB user community, alongside subscribers to the DSB updates, trade associations and other interested parties. All responses are publicly available and available to view here.

In conjunction with releasing the Consultation Report, the DSB has also published the draft User Agreement and associated policies, giving visibility over the draft changes and an opportunity to comment, with a final version being published 20th September 2018.