ANNA Celebrates 30 Year Landmark Anniversary

Celebrating 30 Years working with National Numbering Agencies to provide a global, common language of financial instruments processing

London, 1st February, 2022 – The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA), a global association dedicated to the support of efficient capital markets through the use of widely embraced International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, today announced its 30 year landmark anniversary.

Following the publication of the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) standard ISO 6166, on the 1st November 1981, a standard driven by an industry need to improve cross-border trading, 22 National Numbering Agencies (NNAs) established ANNA on 29th January 1992. ANNA has grown significantly over 30 years and now has 119 members and partners globally, allocating ISINs for more than 200 jurisdictions. Currently, there are more than 81 million ISINs and related information available worldwide.

ANNA is a global member association that fosters standardisation within the financial industry by upholding and promoting ISO’s principles for adoption, development and maintenance of ISIN to identify, FISN to describe, and CFI to classify financial and referential instruments. At the heart of ANNA are the member NNAs, responsible for ISIN assignment and maintenance. NNAs are the local market experts whose coordinated efforts bring consistent and harmonised assignment practices to global markets.

Dan Kuhnel, Chairman of ANNA, said, “We are delighted to be celebrating ANNA’s 30th anniversary. Over the past three decades, the collaboration between ANNA’s federated model of Member/Partner organisations and the ANNA management team has been a significant contribution to our success. Our model supports local market adoption, support and implementation of international standards, leading to the objective of truly global harmonisation. ANNA’s membership continues to grow as we constantly support existing and new standards which make the global financial markets more transparent and efficient for all stakeholders.”

Uwe Meyer, ANNA Executive Director & Secretariat, said, “Thirty years ago, financial markets needed something that identified securities around the world in a consistent and harmonised manner, increasing global interoperability, and ANNA was formed. There was a clear understanding everyone needed to cooperate and promote the use of the ISIN. From early on, ANNA really helped to foster the allocation of ISINs more widely. Through the good work of ANNA and NNAs, the financial industry itself has become more aware of the advantages of the ISIN, to enable better cross border trading. As we go into the future, ANNA continues to develop more guidelines for new standards in areas such as digital assets, helping the market around the world as it evolves.”