During the
2008 financial crisis, regulators realised that a single identification code unique to each financial institution was not available worldwide. It means that each country had different code systems to recognize the counterpart corporation of financial transactions. Accordingly, it was impossible to identify the transaction details of individual corporations, identify the counterpart of financial transactions, and calculate the total risk amount. This resulted in difficulties in estimating individual corporation's amount of risk exposure, analyzing risks across the market, and resolving the failing financial institutions. This is one of the factors that contributed to the
2008 financial crisis. In response, the LEI system was developed by the 2011
G20 in response to this inability of financial institutions to identify organizations uniquely, so that their financial transactions in different national jurisdictions could be fully tracked. Currently, the Legal Entity Identifier Regulatory Oversight Committee (LEI ROC), a coalition of financial regulators and central banks across the globe, is encouraging the expansion of the LEI. The U.S. and European countries require corporations to use the legal entity identifier when reporting the details of transactions with over-the-counter derivatives to financial authorities. Today, authorities of 45 jurisdictions mandate the use of LEI code to identify legal entities involved in different financial transactions. The first LEIs were issued in December 2012. As of 3 January 2018, LEIs are mandatory for all companies who wish to continue trading in securities. == Code structure ==