On August 19, 2015, the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) issued a consultative report on harmonization of the unique transaction identifier (UTI).

The report is the CPMI-IOSCO Harmonization Group’s initial response to its mandate from the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to address the harmonization of the UTI by producing guidance in this area. The group’s objective is to produce clear guidance as to the UTI definition, format and usage that meets the needs of UTI users, is global in scale, and is “jurisdiction agnostic”. This will enable the consistent global aggregation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transaction data.

The key points considered in the report include:

• The OTC derivatives transactions that should be assigned a UTI.
• The entity or entities that should be responsible for generating UTIs in practice.
• What the structure and format of a UTI should be.
• The steps that would help to ensure that UTIs generated under the new guidance are distinct (to the extent necessary to achieve aggregation) from those UTIs generated under existing regimes.

The G20 leaders agreed in 2009 that OTC derivatives contracts should be reported to trade repositories (TRs) as part of their commitment to reform OTC derivatives markets by improving transparency, mitigating systemic risk and protecting against market abuse. Aggregation of the data reported across TRs is necessary to help ensure that authorities are able to obtain a comprehensive view of the OTC derivatives market and activity.