The American National Standards Institute has renewed its accreditation of the CUSIP identifier as the U.S. standard for unique securities identifiers, CUSIP Global Services announced today. The five-year renewal followed an extensive review of the market by ANSI’s Accredited Standards Committee X9. CUSIP is a nine-character identifier that corporations, municipalities, government agencies and other issuers of financial instruments use to uniquely label them. More than 62.8 million CUSIPs have been issued across a broad range of instruments, with at least 9.4 million identifiers still active.
“This latest renewal of the CUSIP accreditation as the country’s established standard for unique security identification reflects the tremendous effort and significant investment CUSIP Global Services puts into managing the CUSIP system day in and day out,” said American Bankers Association President and CEO Rob Nichols. “CUSIP’s strong commitment to investment and innovation has cemented its standing as the industry’s most efficient security identifier for more than 50 years, and will help it retain that role well into the future. CUSIP is central to the efficient operation of our financial markets and we are proud to be a part of this historic industry-wide initiative.”
ABA formed the Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures in 1964 to improve operating efficiencies across the securities industry by developing a standard method of uniquely identifying securities. This effort resulted in the establishment of the CUSIP system in 1968, administered by CUSIP Global Services.
