The verifiable LEI (vLEI)

Digital organizational identity for everyone

The verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI) is a decentralized digital identity that enables counterparties to computationally verify the identity, authority, and role of people acting on behalf of any legal entity. In 2024, a third update to the LEI standard, ISO 17442-3, defined and standardized the use of vLEIs as digital credentials across the global LEI ecosystem.

The vLEI provides instant, automated identity verification of legal entities and those acting on the organization’s behalf. As a verifiable credential, it represents the next generation of identity management and the natural evolution of identity credentials. It ensures robust organizational identity as providers move beyond widely used digital certificates to verifiable credentials issued to specific persons in specific roles. The vLEI is a secure, user-controlled, digitally trustworthy counterpart to an entity’s LEI. It can be used in any kind of digital interaction, transaction, or e-signature scenario, from signing regulatory filings and reports to authorizing business payments and expediting supply chain due diligence.

The vLEI cryptographically combines three identity sources: the entity’s identity, confirmed by their LEI, an individual’s personal identity, and the official organizational role they hold.

Because the vLEI leverages the well-established Global LEI System, the only open, standardized, and regulatory-endorsed legal entity identification system, it is uniquely capable of establishing digital trust between all organizations, everywhere.

The vLEI issuance system establishes GLEIF as the digital ‘root of trust’. This safeguards the integrity of the vLEI digital trust chain and means all vLEIs are openly traceable, through a cryptographically protected chain of credentials, back to their identity data source - their LEI record in the Global LEI Index.

The LEI as a Verifiable Credential – the vLEI Trust Chain

Keen to get your vLEI? Check out our list of Qualified vLEI issuers.

Curious to learn more? Read our Q&A and eBook in the Relevant Files for Download section below.

All Qualified vLEI Issuers operate in accordance with the vLEI Ecosystem Governance Framework. Click here to learn more.