The SICOVAM code or simply "SICOVAM" was a security identifier system used to identify French securities listed on French

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

s. SICOVAM stands for the ''Société Interprofessionnelle pour la Compensation des Valeurs Mobilières'' (), the French

central securities depository A central securities depository (CSD) is a specialized financial market infrastructure organization holding securities such as shares or bonds, either in certificated or uncertificated ( dematerialized) form, allowing ownership to be easily tra ...

later known as

Euroclear France Euroclear France is the main central securities depository (CSD) in France. It is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Euroclear Group. Overview In 1941, the Vichy regime created the Caisse Centrale des Dépôts et Virements de Titres (CCDVT, ) with ...

, which assigned the codes. SICOVAM codes stopped being assigned on July 1, 2003, when they were replaced with

ISIN Isin (, modern Arabic language, Arabic: Ishan al-Bahriyat) is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq which was the location of the Ancient Near East city of Isin, occupied from the late 4th millennium Uruk period up until at ...

Description

SICOVAM codes consisted of a six-digit identifier, assigned by the SICOVAM company "by hand" in order of issue. For instance,

Alcatel Alcatel SA was a French industrial conglomerate active between 1963 and 2006. It has roots to ''Compagnie Générale d’Electricité'' (CGE), a conglomerate founded in 1898 as an early state owned cable and telephone equipment company that lat ...

was assigned 013000. SICOVAM codes could be directly converted to ISINs as with other older systems, including

CUSIP A CUSIP () is a nine-character numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies a North American financial security (finance), security for the purposes of facilitating Clearing (finance), clearing and settlement (finance), settlement of tr ...

and

SEDOL SEDOL stands for Stock Exchange Daily Official List, a list of security identifiers used in the United Kingdom and Ireland for clearing purposes. The numbers are assigned by the London Stock Exchange, on request by the security issuer. SEDOLs serv ...

. To do so the number was padded out with three zeros on the front, then the country code "FR" was added to the front and the ISIN

check digit A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for Error detection and correction, error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It ...

to the end.

References

{{Authority control Security identifier types Financial metadata