Date: 14/12/2011

The Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) held its annual meeting last week in Jordan - Dead Sea, by the invitation of the SDC to convene its General Assembly meeting for the first time in the Middle East. The annual meeting of the (ANNA), which concluded its activities last weekend, continued over three days with the participation of 70 financial institutions representing 40 countries.

The General Assembly of (ANNA) assured the necessity for applying the international standards approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which focus on upgrading of the securities industry; through the coding of financial instruments in accordance with the approved standards that reflect the information and the basic features of each.

Mr. Samir Jaradat, SDC’s CEO, who is a member in the ANNA's board of directors, said that the General Assembly adopted two new standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Those standards add more transparency to the information related to the issuers of securities in response to the recommendations of the Group of Twenty.

The SDC became a member in the (ANNA) since 2004 and it was selected as a numbering agency in Jordan for coding securities for some capital markets in the Middle East. Note that ANNA was established in 1992 in order to unify identification of securities according to the (ISO) standards. The members of ANNA consist of all institutions related to the numbering of securities.

Mr. Samir Jaradat mentioned that the meetings included a workshop during which the participants explained how to apply the international standards that have to be applied in the capital markets and approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in addition to the (LEI) standard which is concerned about legal entity identification of the issuers in order to upgrade the transparency in the international markets.