The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has published its verifiable LEI (vLEI) Ecosystem Governance Framework.
The framework defines the vLEI operational model and describes how the new ecosystem’s range of vLEI issuing stakeholders will qualify for and perform their roles in the Global LEI System.
Additionally, it will provide detail on the governance structures and processes that will shape the development of the vLEI issuance ecosystem, together with the services that GLEIF will provide, including the vLEI Issuer Qualification Program.
The vLEI offers a digital version of the LEI, which allows an automated verification of legal entities and their authorised representatives without the need for human intervention.
A year in the making, the framework has been created in full accordance with standards and recommendations of the Trust Over IP Foundation (ToIP), hosted by the Linux Foundation.
Speaking on the announcement, Stephan Wolf, CEO at GLEIF, comments: “The LEI has a critical role to play in today’s digital world through its ability to provide organisations with unique, permanent identification globally. This is important in the context of identifying legal entities involved in digital transactions, where manual background checks inflate costs and cause huge unnecessary delays.
“GLEIF’s vision is that every legal entity should have one global identity, and this should include a digital identity. Establishing the vLEI Ecosystem Governance Framework is a significant step toward realising that vision.”
John Jordan, executive director at Trust over IP Foundation, adds: “The vLEI is a great, early-stage example of how the potential of the ToIP Stack can be realised to digitally enhance an already established global system. It shows how a secure, interoperable, and massively scalable decentralised trust layer can enable an existing service to get ahead of critical issues relating to authentication and verification that would otherwise threaten its smooth transition to the digital realm and all the benefits that it delivers.”
