The IOTA Foundation has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). This partnership aims to address one of the oldest challenges in trade: verifying the legitimacy of business partners across borders.
Companies often face delays and costs when manually checking registries and counterparty details. Errors or missing data can increase risks and slow transactions.
GLEIF was created by the G20’s Financial Stability Board after the 2008 financial crisis to address this gap. It issues Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs), a globally recognized 20-digit code, along with verifiable digital counterparts known as vLEIs. These identifiers help firms reduce uncertainty by anchoring their credentials to a secure, global database.
The collaboration of IOTA and GLEIF will pilot authenticating digital identities to operate directly on blockchain networks. With IOTA’s Identity Framework and its Trade Worldwide Information Network (TWIN) infrastructure, the plan is to create immediate trust among businesses.
Through linking IOTA Identities and GLEIF’s vLEIs, companies might facilitate Know Your Business validations in a simplified manner through cryptographic proofs, reducing processes and making them more reliable.
The onboarding may be especially beneficial to high-risk countries whose businesses struggle to access trade financing. A company with a vLEI using the TWIN platform might onboard easily by providing structured information and credentials of trust without having to repeat laborious registration processes. This would facilitate timely market entry while cutting costs associated with compliance and validation.
Dominik Schiner, IOTA Co-Founder, highlighted how blockchain is here to address real-world challenges, and this effort is part of a journey to eventual practical deployment. Jens Munch Lund-Nielsen, IOTA global trade and supply chains leader, highlighted interoperability and standardization as essential to digital trade scalability.
Both organizations are crafting proof-of-concept integrations so digital identities created within either of their ecosystems could be used interchangeably.
GLEIF’s services, led by API, would provide structured data in onboarding, while IOTA’s blockchain platforms would keep these interactions on-chain. Businesses within the US, Kenya, or the UK could equally reap the benefits of the same amount of trust and gain easier access to funding and cross-border trade.
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