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UTI: A Post-Crisis Solution Whose Time Is Still Coming

November 7, 2025 | 4 minutes reading time | By Michael Shashoua

The Unique Transaction Identifier standard poses a “collective action problem” that needs industry-wide collaboration for its risk and efficiency benefits to be fully realized.

The multinational response to the 2008 crisis had operational consequences beyond the headline reforms aimed at strengthening financial stability. A case in point is a trade reporting rule, which in turn led to the Unique Transaction Identifier (UTI) standard, initially to bring transparency to an over-the-counter market trouble spot.

By January 2018, nearly a year after the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) set out technical guidance for “harmonization” of the UTI, a Financial Stability Board (FSB) report on governance arrangements recommended that the standard be implemented no later than 2020.

Despite the good intentions of trade repositories and the backing of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) and other infrastructure operators, it’s still a work in progress.

International Swaps and Derivatives Association CEO Scott O’Malia cited “widespread” challenges in the regulatory implementation of trade reporting: “The rules have often been inconsistent, duplicative and costly to implement, leading to inaccuracies, repetition and...

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Topics: Counterparty, Data, Financial Markets, Regulation & Compliance

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