It may not be obvious for everyone that the Central Securities Depository of Poland (KDPW) is a numbering agency. However, it is a fact that KDPW is the only institution in Poland and one of few institutions in Europe to offer such a broad range of numbering services for financial market entities and instruments. As of November 2014, KDPW also issues FISN codes which provide a simple and standardised description of financial instrument characteristics.
FISN (Financial Instrument Short Name) has been developed in order to ensure a coherent, uniform approach to the standardisation of financial instrument short names under international standards.
FISN codes are issued both for local and foreign financial instruments and used in the international financial market. As of 17 November 2014, all instruments which are issued ISIN and CFI codes by KDPW are also assigned FISN codes. KDPW is gradually issuing FISN codes for all instruments previously issued ISIN codes by KDPW. FISN has up to 35 alphanumeric characters and includes the issuer short name and a short description of financial instrument characteristics.
FISN codes are issued according to a glossary of English terms and abbreviations used in the description of financial instrument characteristics. The terms of issuing FISN codes depend on the type of financial instrument.
In addition to FISN, KDPW also issues ISIN, CFI and LEI codes.
ISIN is a unique identifier of securities and financial instruments issued under ISO 6166 and the guidelines of The Association of National Numbering Agencies, of which KDPW is a member since 1994. Participants of the global capital market using ISIN codes may encounter problems with quick identification of the type of instrument. For this purpose, CFI has been introduced as a single classification standard of financial instruments. CFI code is a non-unique description of a financial instrument including six characters issued under ISO 10962.
LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) is a 20-character alphanumeric code which is the unique identifier of entities trading on global financial markets. Each entity obliged to report details of derivatives contracts to a trade repository, either independently on through an agent, must hold an LEI which identifies it as a counterparty. In December 2013, by decision of the Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC), KDPW received the status of pre-LOU (Local Operating Unit) authorised to issue LEIs.