Industry Perspectives – Q&A with ANNA Service Bureau (ASB) Operators

What is the ANNA Service Bureau?

The ANNA Service Bureau (ASB) collects and distributes ISIN identifiers and associated data elements (e.g. CFI, FISN) of a security or referential instrument through a common platform operated by CUSIP Global Services (CGS) and SIX Financial Information. This platform operates as a central hub that receives and consolidates daily and master files from 100 ANNA members and 20 partners globally. In addition to making this information available to National Numbering Agencies (NNAs), the ASB offers subscription data services for non-members market participants.

What are the benefits of the ASB?

The ASB provides many benefits to the financial industry. It fully supports a robust ISIN product and makes the data available to the wider financial industry via multiple delivery channels (database feed, portfolio service and web query tools). The ASB Operators, (CGS and SIX), efficiently deliver consolidated global ISIN data and worldwide support to ensure data quality. The cloud-based infrastructure offers a robust service with an excellent disaster recovery facility. CGS and SIX, being at the forefront of global financial data developments, proactively plan adjustments and enhancements of the database and our offering together with ANNA.

Who subscribes to the ASB data services?

We currently support a global client base, covering the buy-side, sell-side, and data vendors. The ASB provides access to ISO standards (ISIN, CFI, and FISN) used for regulatory reporting and nourishes security master files across the industry with consistent, primary source asset-level information.   Given the importance global regulators place on the standards supported by ANNA, plus the fact that the ASB is the “golden source” of the same, we expect the use of ASB data to grow over time, further contributing to ANNA’s success.

What are the key aspects of the ASB going forward?

Data quality and completeness of data are probably the most important areas for our clients going forward. Together with the NNAs and the ANNA Partners we need to ensure these two aspects. For this, as ASB Operators, we depend on the contributors of the data from the NNAs as the primary source for ISIN data in their local markets. Through the new ASB developed platform, we provide all the necessary information and feedback to the NNA contributors to enable them to increase their own data quality, and through this, also the ASB data that we deliver to clients. A further key point is timeliness. Being the “golden source”, we must ensure the ASB data is made available at the earliest possible time the market can offer.

Furthermore, in the 2021 revision of the ISO 6166 ISIN standard, language was introduced to make explicit that ISINs are assigned irrespective of the technology used, including tokenized instruments. As such, the use of ISIN in its current form will enable the identification of digital assets such as security tokens.