The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has announced the launch of a verifiable LEI Issuer Qualification Program, extending its efforts to provide regulated and standardised global identities for legal entities around the world, thereby enhancing computation trust in their transactions and interactions with other counterparties.
GLEIF is now inviting existing and prospective partners to start the verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI) Issuer Qualification process. It anticipates that this qualification will take approximately 90 days, enabling a Qualified LEI Issuer to serve as the primary point of contact and issuing agency for legal entities seeking a vLEI.
When they have completed vLEI Issuer Qualification, this will allow the qualified issuer to provide digital identity credentials to a wide range of business entities to support their domestic and cross-border transactions and engagements where computational trust is required.
The Foundation indicates that more than two million legal entities globally now identify themselves internationally using an LEI, a system of global business identification overseen by the G20, the Financial Stability Board and a group of public authorities around the world.
The vLEI is a digital version of the LEI, which aims to meet the requirement for automated digital verification of the legal identities of businesses.
GLEIF indicates that the release in its vLEI Issuer Qualification Program is the third in a series of announcements regarding the development of the vLEI programme.
On 22 June, it announced that PharmaLedger, a consortium of 12 global pharmaceutical companies and 17 public and private entities, will use the vLEI to support legal entity identification in a new healthcare service blockchain platform.
A week later, it announced the first live use of a vLEI by a company in signing its 2021 annual report, enabling the firm to sign specific sections of the annual report through an electronic process.
Commenting on the initiative, GLEIF CEO Stephan Wolf, says: “The pace of digital transformation sweeping through the world’s economies demands that we find an open, commercially neutral and global solution to the issuers of security, convenience and ease of use that are challenging the field of digital organisational identity.
“The vLEI is that solution. It has the potential to revolutionise secure identity management across the internet, safeguarding digital engagements and transactions for businesses in every industry.”
