The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it has secured a membership in the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) as a partner, as part of its initiative to make the Philippine capital market more accessible and transparent.
ANNA is a global member association seeking to foster standardization within the financial industry by promoting standard identifiers.
Founded in 1992 by 22 numbering agencies, ANNA’s membership has grown to more than 120 global members and partners allocating International Securities Identification Number (ISIN), Financial Instrument Short Name (FISN) and Classification of Financial Instruments (CFI) Icodes on behalf of their local jurisdictions.
As an ANNA partner, the SEC will act as the national numbering agency for the Philippines.
The SEC will be primarily responsible for the allocation of ISIN, FISN and codes to all instruments in the market, including unlisted securities.
“The SEC has already developed the national numbering system that will assign the securities identifiers — ISIN under ISO 6166, CFI under ISO 10962, and FISN under ISO 18774,” the SEC said.
“The SEC National Numbering System (NNS) can assign securities identifiers to both corporate securities and securities issued by the government such as those issued by the Bureau of the Treasury and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas,” it added.
Emilio Aquino, SEC chairman, said the commission’s membership in ANNA as a partner is “a significant step toward making the Philippine market more accessible, transparent and, more importantly, secure.”
“By adopting standard identifiers, recognized in now more than 120 jurisdictions, securities first issued within the country can be acknowledged and traded between buyers and sellers virtually anywhere in the world. In this light, we look forward to a more robust activity in our domestic capital market,” he said. – Ruelle Castro
