ISO

International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...

 6166 defines the structure of an International Securities Identifying Number (ISIN). An ISIN uniquely identifies a fungible security. Securities with which ISINs can be used are Equities, Fixed income

Fixed income

Fixed income refers to any type of investment that is not equity, which obligates the borrower/issuer to make payments on a fixed schedule, even if the number of the payments may be variable....

 & ETF's

Exchange-traded fund

An exchange-traded fund is an investment fund traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks, commodities, or bonds, and trades close to its net asset value over the course of the trading day. Most ETFs track an index, such as the S&P 500 or MSCI EAFE...

 only.

ISINs consist of two alphabetic characters, which are the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization , to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest...

 code for the issuing country, nine alpha-numeric digits (the National Securities Identifying Number, or NSIN, which identifies the security), and one numeric check digit. The NSIN is issued by a national numbering agency

National numbering agency

A national numbering agency is the organisation in each country responsible for issuing International Securities Identification Numbers as described by the ISO 6166 standard and the Classification of Financial Instruments code as described by the ISO 10962 standard...

 (NNA) for that country. Regional substitute NNAs have been allocated the task of functioning as NNAs in those countries where NNAs have not yet been established.

ISINs are slowly being introduced worldwide. At present, many countries have adopted ISINs as a secondary measure of identifying securities, but as yet only some of those countries have moved to using ISINs as their primary means of identifying securities.

NNAs cooperate through the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA). ANNA also functions as the ISO 6166 Maintenance Agency (MA).

See also

• Central Index Key
  Central Index Key
  A Central Index Key or CIK number is a number given to an individual or company by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The number is used to identify the filings of a company, person, or entity in several online databases, including EDGAR.The numbers are ten digits in...
  
  
• CUSIP
  CUSIP
  The acronym CUSIP historically refers to the Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures, which was founded in 1964, during the paper crunch in Wall Street. This 9-character alphanumeric code identifies any North American security for the purposes of facilitating clearing and settlement...
  
  
• International Securities Identifying Number
• ISO 10383
  ISO 10383
  ISO 10383 is an ISO standard which "specifies a universal method of identifying exchanges, trading platforms and regulated or non-regulated markets as sources of prices and related information in order to facilitate automated processing." The codes defined by the standard are known as Market...
  
  
• ISO 10962
  ISO 10962
  ISO 10962 is the CFI code maintained by the International Organization for Standardization . It is an alphabetical code consisting of 6 letters. The first letter is the category, the second is the group, and the remaining letters show special attributes of the group...
  
  
• NSIN
  NSIN
  A National Securities Identifying Number or NSIN is a generic nine-digit alpha numeric code which identifies a fungible security. The NSIN is issued by a national numbering agency designated for that country. Regional substitute NNAs have been allocated the task of functioning as NNAs in those...
  
  

External links

• ISO
• Association of National Numbering Agencies – has more information on ISO 6166
• Prüfziffernberechnung in der Praxis – site in German; describes in detail how to construct the ISIN from the NSIN