A unique 20-character code, issued under the ISO 17442 standard, that identifies a legal entity anywhere in the world.
A Legal Entity Identifier is a 20-character code made of letters and numbers that names one legal entity. The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, which administers the system, describes it as resting on the ISO 17442 standard and as answering who is who and who owns whom. An LEI record gives the entity’s legal name and address and, where reported, its parent.
In lending data, the LEI is the identifier for every institution that files under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Since the 2018 data year a filer’s LEI has replaced the older agency code and respondent ID, and Regulation C requires each loan’s universal identifier to begin with the lender’s LEI. That is why a mortgage company with no bank charter can still be identified exactly.
For a borrower or broker, the use is practical. Lender names in mortgage data are messy, and affiliates of one group can file separately. The LEI tells you which legal entity made the loans you are looking at, so you contact the company that lends and not a similarly named one.
How it shows up in the data here
The LEI is how this site ties HMDA mortgage records to a lender. Where the FDIC file lists a bank's LEI, HMDA loans join on it; otherwise the join uses the name and state on the HMDA transmittal sheet, and the lender record says which method was used. Mortgage companies that are not banks or credit unions appear under an ID built from their LEI. See multifamily lenders by loans made and the data dictionary.
Go further
- Multifamily lenders by loans made: HMDA loans joined to lenders by LEI.
- Data dictionary: The lei field and the HMDA join method.
- How to read HMDA data for multifamily and investor loans: HMDA is the one public file that lists individual apartment and rental-house loans by lender, amount, county and year. It covers loans on dwellings only, and not every lender reports.
Related terms
- Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA): The federal law that makes mortgage lenders collect and publish loan-level data on loans secured by a dwelling, including apartment buildings and 1-4 unit rentals.
- HMDA loan register (LAR): The loan-by-loan file a mortgage lender keeps and reports each year under HMDA, with one row for every covered loan and loan request and what happened to it.
- Regulation C: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule, 12 CFR part 1003, that carries out the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and sets which lenders report and what they report.
- FDIC certificate number: The unique number the FDIC assigns to each bank and savings institution, used to identify it in FDIC records.
- RSSD ID: The unique number the Federal Reserve assigns to a bank, credit union, holding company or other financial entity as its identifier in Federal Reserve records.
- Non-bank lender: A non-bank lender is a company that makes loans but does not take deposits, so it is not a bank, a savings institution or a credit union.
Sources
Plain definitions for orientation, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do.