Why Digital Collaboration Demands Verifiable Organizational Identity
Dr. Andre Kudra, CIO of esatus AG, explains why the digital economy urgently needs verifiable organizational identity and how the vLEI Authenticator, developed in collaboration with GLEIF, is delivering on the need for real trust and security.
Author: Dr. Andre Kudra, CIO of esatus AG
Date: 2026-01-21
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esatus AG is an IT service provider specializing in digital and decentralized identities. In this blog, Dr. Andre Kudra, CIO of esatus AG, explores how the largest corporate fraud cases of recent years clearly show that trust without technical verification is no longer an option. To address this challenge, integrating the vLEI Authenticator into IT systems enables the application of the Know Your Customer (KYC) principle to relationships between organizations. This makes companies digitally verifiable, reducing risk and laying the foundation for an economy in which trust is not assumed but proven.
Why is organizational digital identity long overdue?
Digital collaboration has become standard across the global economy. Companies exchange data, grant partner employees access to their platforms, and authorize payments. Yet one crucial safeguard is often missing: Who is actually on the other side of an interaction?
The challenge stems from the fact that organizations are commonly "identified" through indirect signals such as email domains, company logos, or manually maintained partner lists. These methods are unreliable, easy to manipulate, and challenging to scale. And when organizations rely on trust rather than technology to verify, the consequences are real and costly.
What happens when trust replaces verification?
Remember the single fraudster who collected over $100 million from two of the world's largest technology companies by posing as a legitimate supplier and sending fake invoices? Or the major automotive supplier that wired tens of millions of dollars to criminals who impersonated a long-term business partner?
These were two headline-grabbing stories, but they point to a far more pernicious problem impacting businesses of all sizes. A joint report by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and Europol revealed that, alone, misleading invoices and corporate impersonation schemes cost European companies over €26 million annually. While this figure may seem relatively low, it represents only the visible minimum. Although thousands of misleading payment requests have been flagged in recent years, the vast majority go unreported. Given the millions of potential targets across Europe, the actual losses are likely far higher than the official figures suggest.
Regardless of scale, nearly all cases share the same flaw: the identities of the organizations involved are never technically verified.
How does verifiable identity for organizations solve this problem?
In enterprise systems, users log in as individuals. But many processes, such as compliance audits, supplier onboarding, data access, or regulatory reporting, require knowing the organization behind the person and their formal role within it.
The verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI) addresses this need. It is a digital credential for organizations, issued by Qualified vLEI Issuers (QVIs) under the governance of GLEIF. It verifies that an organization officially exists and that specific individuals are authorized to act on its behalf. All information is cryptographically secured, machine-readable, and verifiable within GLEIF's vLEI ecosystem.
To operationalize this identity within existing IT systems, GLEIF and esatus AG jointly developed the vLEI Authenticator. It enables individuals to authenticate into IT systems with cryptographic proof of their organization and their authorized role within it. The vLEI Authenticator performs a cryptographic login check and can be integrated into login flows like standard IAM components. Still, it is based on verifiable organizational credentials rather than traditional SSO mechanisms. This marks a first step toward a world where companies can automatically verify each other before sharing data, approving payments, or interacting digitally. Put simply, it turns "we believe this is our partner" into "we know it is."
How does the vLEI Authenticator work in practice?
The vLEI Authenticator integrates with standard identity and access management platforms. When a user or organization logs into a protected system – for example, to access a document or an application – the vLEI Authenticator validates the vLEI credential against the GLEIF trust framework. Access is only granted if the credential is valid. Reliability becomes a property of the process, not an assumption.
What benefits do companies gain from this approach?
The vLEI Authenticator secures login scenarios across systems such as shared data environments, supplier portals, or enterprise applications by reducing reliance on traditional usernames and passwords, adding verifiable organizational credentials to the authentication process, delivering various benefits:
Security: Only verified organizations can transact or access systems.
Transparency: Every transaction and role is traceable.
Compliance: Verification requirements are met by design.
Is the solution already in use today?
In a Nextcloud demonstration environment, organizations successfully used the vLEI Authenticator to verify both their corporate identity and employees' authorization to act on their behalf. Access to data was granted only after verification. The process took seconds and replaced manual reviews that typically take hours or days.
What comes next for verifiable organizational identity?
Combining GLEIF's vLEI, standardized identity protocols, and existing enterprise software creates a new layer of digital trust infrastructure. In the future, it can connect with European initiatives such as the EUDI Wallet, enabling organizations to securely and consistently verify their identities across borders. This brings us closer to a world where trust no longer has to be assumed. It will be a verifiable fact.
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Dr. Andre Kudra is CIO of esatus AG. He is internationally recognized as one of the defining figures in Self-Sovereign Identity. He actively shapes standardization and governance bodies, including IDunion, Trust over IP, and global initiatives such as vLEI. He combines deep technical expertise with a strategic understanding of regulatory frameworks. As an entrepreneur and technology leader, he has been driving the development of trusted digital identity ecosystems for years.
