The Connector. podcast - GLEIF

In the latest episode of The Connector Podcast, recorded live from Cyberport in Hong Kong, host Koen Vanderhoydonk sat down with Alexandre Kech, CEO of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), to discuss how digital identity is being redefined through the vLEI — the verifiable Legal Entity Identifier.

From the 2008 Crisis to Global Transparency

GLEIF was born from the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis, when regulators and banks realised they lacked a global system to identify legal entities. Each country had its own registry, but no universal standard existed to answer a simple question: who is this company, and who owns it?

The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) solved that problem by creating a global, regulator-supervised system for identifying organisations and mapping ownership hierarchies. Today, LEIs are used in capital markets, regulatory reporting, and increasingly in cross-border payments and trade to strengthen transparency and compliance.

The Next Step: The vLEI

The vLEI takes this one step further — linking not only a legal entity, but also the people and systems acting on its behalf.As Kech explains, “vLEI cryptographically binds an individual or system to a company in a verifiable way. It proves that someone signing or acting online is authorised to do so on behalf of that organisation.”

In other words, the vLEI creates verifiable digital credentials for official roles — CEO, CFO, UBO, system operator — turning what used to rely on signatures or certificates into a secure, machine-verifiable identity layer for the digital economy.

Why It Matters

In a world where most business happens online, the traditional cues of trust — a handshake, a business card, a notarised document — have disappeared. Without a verifiable way to prove identity and authority, companies face greater risks of fraud, slow onboarding, and broken collaboration.

The vLEI closes that gap. It enables seamless authentication, permissioning, and digital signing across platforms — from onboarding suppliers and clients to securing access for employees, systems, and even AI agents.

Asia-Pacific Leads the Way

GLEIF’s growth in Asia-Pacific highlights how quickly the region is embracing digital identity. The foundation recently opened a new office in China, reflecting strong momentum across the Greater Bay Area.“Six of our eight qualified vLEI issuers are now based in Asia,” Kech notes. “That shows how forward-looking the region is when it comes to innovation and interoperability.”

Projects using the LEI and vLEI are already live in areas such as cross-border payments and telecommunications, where GLEIF is working with industry partners to verify the origin of phone calls — a step that could help rebuild trust in one of the most widely abused communication channels.

Building the Ecosystem

GLEIF’s role is not to issue credentials itself, but to act as the root of trust. Accredited Qualified vLEI Issuers (QVIs) verify entities and the individuals linked to them, creating an open ecosystem where trust can be extended across borders and industries.

Participation is collaborative: “You can’t use the vLEI alone,” Kech explains. “It becomes truly valuable when your partners, banks, and suppliers also use it.”

Looking Ahead

The next 12 months will see the scaling of real-world vLEI implementations, moving from pilots to production. Use cases range from secure payments and digital trade to AI agent identity and telecommunications.

GLEIF’s mission remains clear: to provide open, verifiable digital identity infrastructure that makes global business faster, safer, and more transparent.

As Kech concludes: “We’re not a commercial provider — we’re a public-good foundation. Our goal is to make trusted data available so that others can build the solutions the digital economy needs.” Listen to the full podcast here.