LEI

Michael Salmony 0:12

Hello, my name is Michael Salmony and Ralf and Javier and I would like to welcome you to another episode of the Payments Trilogue. And today we have one of my favourite topics, which is identity, which of course is the basis of payments and all of our digital commerce and something we seem to be doing as an afterthought rather than having created it to the basis for everything, which maybe we should have done. One of the people who's trying to fix this is Alexandre from GLEIF.

And GLEIF is the organization behind the LEI and the vLEI, which I think are rather interesting concepts. So, Alexandre, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what GLEIF and you do?

Alexandre Kech 0:54

Sure, thank you for having me. I'm Alexandre Kech CEO of GLEIF since last year. Background in banking, Bank of New York City Bank. Also 18 years at Swift building ISO standards like 20022 standards, but also market identifier code and other type of codes.

very important as you know in our industry. And I also have background in digital assets and ⁓ digital and blockchain in general, where identity is actually one of the missing piece for scaling of that industry. So maybe we can talk about that because it's also related to payments.

Michael Salmony 1:28

Yeah, I think it's a missing piece everywhere, right? In, in agentic AI in, in IOT, if you don't know which device it is, which person it is, which organization it is and what their rights are, you're building everything on sand. So I think it's high time we got this identity topic sorted. So what is the LEI and what is the vLEI? Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that.

Alexandre Kech 1:53

Sure. So the legal entity identifier or LEI is a identifier, a simple analog 20 character number, plus a set of reference data that represents an organization wherever it sits in the world. So everything is standardized and presented the same way. And it's used initially in, it was used initially in capital markets after the 2008 financial crisis, but now is being used more and more in

cross-border payments as part of FATF recommendation 16, for example, and other ⁓ recommendations and or regulations, and also in global trade. So the LEI is really kind of a passport for companies to present themselves across border. The vLEI is it's verifiable version or verify verifiable digital version, meaning that ⁓ it enables a company to prove who they are.

on a digital platform, be it internet, a blockchain or any platforms really that is digital. But it also enables people, systems or AI agent in the future acting on behalf of the company to prove that they have received delegation of authority in a verifiable way, in a cryptographical way. So that's very strong, especially in a world where we have a lot of impersonation, a lot of ⁓ fraud and payments and in trade and in every industry.

So we're looking forward to be able to deploy this protocol via the AI further in the future.

Michael Salmony 3:24

mean, that's really interesting. It's in the B2B space, if we understand it right. It's sort of identifying companies more than people. Most of the identity projects are more about sort of people's rights. But you are also thinking about identifying things and organizations. And so that's a very wide ranging concept. Can you sort of position it against the EU ID wallet ⁓ initiative, which is another sort of big identity thing in our area?

Alexandre Kech 3:55

Sure. most of the identification of digital identity projects have been ⁓ focusing on individual identification, which is, of course, essential and important. But I think all those projects lacks a layer of ⁓ organizational identity ⁓ discussion. it's starting. It is starting in Europe with ⁓ the business wallet discussions, ⁓ which is great. ⁓

with the caveat that most of the conversations are inspiring themselves based on what has been built for individuals when in fact organizations are working very differently than individuals. Organizations don't take decisions, don't sign contracts, don't authorize transactions. It's people and systems at organizations that ⁓ act on behalf of the organization.

And therefore, there is a need to be able to link individual systems, IoT device, AI agents, whoever is acting on behalf of the organizations to that organization in a cryptographic way to ensure that you always know who is in control, who is liable and accountable if something goes wrong, which is sometimes missed in those conversations at the European level. So this is why we participate in some of those ⁓ big pilots.

that are happening in Europe to ensure that that aspect of organizational identity is not forgotten.

Michael Salmony 5:26

Well.

Ralf Ohlhausen 5:26

Could

I could I come in and ask right away here now? So we've there is also the ⁓ European business wallet being now being proposed. And how does that fit together with what you just said?

Alexandre Kech 5:46

Well, business wallets and or identity wallets are there to securely ⁓ host credentials and identity. So for individuals, ⁓ that's fine. You do have wallets that today already do that, ⁓ be it ⁓ crypto wallets or Apple wallets or whatever type of wallets you have out there to host identity credentials and other types of credentials associated to ⁓ a person.

Business wallets have the same role, but for organizations, they should not only be able to identify, ⁓ to hold the credentials identifying a business, but also the credentials ⁓ that entity ⁓ have ⁓ like a eSeal today, like an electronic seals equivalent, in credentials, ⁓ verify credential ⁓ protocols. ⁓

That's interesting, but a business wallet should also be able to be used to issue credentials to individuals acting on behalf of the organization. And that's where the link I was mentioning about is important, that you shouldn't be thinking about business wallet in isolation from individual wallets, because ultimately they work together and they should work together to ensure that you have a full, complete, verifiable cryptographic picture of a company and people acting on behalf of the company.

Ralf Ohlhausen 7:09

Well, I guess we're almost getting ahead of ourselves already. Because before looking at the like the new virtual LEI, sorry, verifiable LEI. ⁓ I actually wanted to ask about well, the traditional one and the take up of it and how that has come along. I read something about India. Having seen growth, but

elsewhere? I don't know, I have the impression that it is still struggling in terms of take up. So why is that? And what do you think you can change?

Alexandre Kech 7:49

David, it's a good question. So today we have around 3 million LEIs, which of course does not represent the

the horizon of all legal entities around the world. Three million LEIs, are financial institutions, but also corporates and sole proprietorship as well. So the advantage of the LEI can be issued to any legal entity, whatever the type of legal entities. In terms of growth, this year we've seen a very large growth. There were about 1000 LEI issued every day in 2025. Is that enough to fill the gap? No. So what GLEIF has been working on

with the board and the regulatory oversight committee is various approaches to simplify the issuance of LEIs. For example, working directly with business registries. So when a company is incorporated, they get a national identity. Why not issuing an LEI at the same time? That type of discussion. So we have progressed with a few business registry on those type of conversations. We also have ⁓ support from banks and other

entities who, by definition, onboard corporate customers as part of their day-to-day business. ⁓ So they do KYB. So we leverage their KYB to issue LEIs to companies that don't have an LEI. That's called a validation agent model. So in a nutshell, ⁓ beyond ⁓ the current known way of getting an LEI, which is connecting to an LEI, we're validating its information and receiving one. We're looking at alternative ways to issue LEIs. ⁓

When we look at geography now, initially, LEI was heavily used in Europe and in the US. And now we're seeing Asia Pacific ⁓ dramatically growing in terms of adoption. India is one example, but China as well, South Korea, Japan, et cetera, still around the use case of OTC derivative and capital markets, but more and more around banking and payments. India is a very good example of that, both domestic and cross-border payments over a certain amount.

a certain threshold are now mandated to use an EI for identification of beneficiary and ordering customer. So ordering customer and beneficiary, yes. So it is progressing. We still have a lot of work to do. And that's clearly part of our strategy that we've established with the board and the regulatory oversight committee.

Michael Salmony 10:10

There are a couple of things to do.

Ralf Ohlhausen 10:10

But why if I'm a business, why would I not do it? Is it ⁓ a lot of work? It does it cost money? Or what are the if you I don't know, if you try to put yourself into the shoes of the of the companies or what what is what is speaking against it, if anything?

Javier Santamaría 10:28

the terms.

Alexandre Kech 10:30

I would say two major things. So awareness. So a lot of companies don't even know LEI exists because the initial use case for LEI was capital market OTC derivative. It was kind of very niche regulatory use case around the use of LEIs. People had to have an LEI because regulators and regulation were mandating it. ⁓ But they didn't find it necessarily useful for other use cases. So now that it's moving into

cross-border payments, well as trade and supply chain management, what we expect is that the use case, the value of the LEI as an identifier will grow. But for that to happen, obviously, we need more awareness and ⁓ collaboration with industry groups and so on and so forth. The second aspect of ⁓ adoption ⁓ is always how easy is it to get an LEI? So it is relatively easy.

I think people believe it's complicated and costly, but it's no longer the case. So they might, it might have been the case 10 years ago when the system was created, but today there are more than 39 LEI issuers in every jurisdiction. have at least a seven or eight to choose from who competes on price and on processes leading to a cost of acquiring an LEI now being around $60, 50 euros. And so it's not a lot of money to get an identifier in my view. So.

A lot of awareness, a lot of myth busting that we need to do. And that's why I welcome this invitation. I guess we can ⁓ bust a few myths together about the LEI and to demonstrate that it has value ⁓ for onboarding now, KYB facilitating onboarding. It has value on simply managing data sets around entities you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis as customers or our supply chain. And that's what we will be focusing again, our attention.

on to in the coming years to increase that value and therefore the volume of LEIs.

Michael Salmony 12:26

Isn't

one of the problems that plagues the whole identity space is there always, it's so fragmented. Like in Germany, I think there are 38 identity solutions just in Germany. Most of them are sort of more for individual identities, but also globally. mean, you you mentioned India. They already have ATA there, right? Or there's Dun & Bradstreet who also do corporate identities. know, it's so fragmented and so many competitors. How are you going to...

punch through that and be the one, the ring who solves them all.

Alexandre Kech 12:58

So fragmentation of identity.

So the fragmentation and the existence of multiple identity system is clearly a challenge. you know, there's just so much, so nice. The good thing about standards that there's so many of them, right? Ultimately. So what we've, the way we've approached that at GLEIF is that we don't want to compete with other identifiers. We want to...

connect them. And that's what we've been doing for many years. So for example, the BIC, so the business identifier code that Swift is in charge of, we map to the BIC, meaning that if you have a BIC, can find your LEI and vice versa. Although there it's one too many ⁓ relationship. We also map to commercial identifiers like the S&P identity and so on and others and others. And there the objective is to also increase the value of LEI as a connector between identifiers.

We already connected to domestic identifiers. So you cannot have an LEI without being obviously registered into a business registry or another type of ⁓ registration authority within a country. So ⁓ when we publish an LEI, we always link it back to the domestic identifier as a connector again. ⁓ yes, is a problem. Fragmentation is always a problem in every industry.

But our way of solving that is by enabling mapping and connecting those various identifier schemes.

Michael Salmony 14:29

That's very smart. I mean, you mentioned maybe I misheard you, but it sounded a bit earlier as though it's sort of replacing maybe even an IBAN. It can be a sort of identifying a destination for a payment. So did I hear that wrong?

Javier Santamaría 14:29

will be.

Alexandre Kech 14:43

You did hear that wrong. It will not replace IBAN, nor ⁓ the BIC, for example, because the BIC is way more granular. BIC is at branch level. ⁓ It's a routing mechanism for payments. So you can't really, ⁓ with an LEI, you know the legal entity behind the financial institution involved or the receiver of the payments, but you don't necessarily know the final destination, which is represented by the IBAN, for short, the account ⁓ at the legal entity where cash would be ⁓ delivered to.

Michael Salmony 14:45

Thank

Alexandre Kech 15:13

And in some cases, you need to go further in terms of understanding the branch that ⁓ if an illegal entity has 10 branches within the same country, for example, as a corporate, you need to be able to go to that level. So ⁓ that's why it's important to be realistic and humble about the role of LEI in those days. It's not going to replace anything or everything. It's there to complement other identifiers as well.

Michael Salmony 15:39

Yeah, I'm relieved to hear that.

Javier Santamaría 15:41

In fact, I think that's one of the confusions that took place years ago. between the routing for payments and non-payments professionals, routing is essential, while LEI is more about identity itself. So it's more about the organizations ⁓ acting in a transaction. So let me start from the beginning. Today I have to declare not a conflict of interest, but an alignment of interest because I am...

member of the board of directors of GLEIF and I'm very happy to have you here Alex and explain some things. Let me just give you my view and see if you share it or not. I see GLEIF as an excellent serendipity example. So by chance in 2008 the regulators hit and mining ore by mandating something that had to do very specifically

with capital markets, OTC and derivatives. But after some years, ⁓ the community uncovered a huge value in it. So there is much more than that. And I think that at GLEIF, you know about that value and the challenge is to spread it, to make people realize that there is this huge value. So I think the challenge is going beyond what we see at face value right now. ⁓

At the very beginning, also organizations, particularly financial institutions, were reluctant because it was mandated and it was coming from the dark side. It was another instance of the empire striking again, and it was reluctance. But now I feel that even financial institutions are convinced of the value. They know it's valuable. It's a global standard. It may make things really easier, but we face the challenge this

Alexandre Kech 17:10

Okay. Okay.

Javier Santamaría 17:38

chicken and egg problem, this critical mass achievement. And I see that, and you have ⁓ identified that in payments, in trade, in many supply chains, there is a huge value to be unleashed having to do with the LEI and vLEI. But how do you perceive, how should we proceed in identifying use cases, in convincing people of really using the LEI?

and making it valuable spontaneously, not because it is mandated, but because it makes sense. And it makes sense. And of course, one cannot accept that having 38 identifiers is a good solution. So we are convinced of having a unique global standard, that's okay, but how do we implement that?

Alexandre Kech 18:28

Agree. But we do, just to add on to that, we do see a ⁓ usage of LEI. mean, ⁓ it's those type of silent standards that are being used on a day-to-day basis, but are not being talked about because, you know, who cares about identity, ISO identity standards, except for a few compliance people and a few operational people and a few head of chief data officers.

It's not the core of a business. The core of business is transacting, is making money. It's a facilitator of business. And I think that's one of the reasons why also it's not necessarily known from everybody is that it's a silent foundation to everything, but nobody necessarily knows that it's being used. We see that by the number of downloads that we have from our files. So as we may know, the LEI database is accessible for free. Anybody can download it.

Everybody can build API connections to the LEI database completely for free. We have dozens of millions of API calls per week. have ⁓ millions of file downloads ⁓ per month, like some also downloading it multiple times a day. So it is definitely used. We know that the entities downloading it and using it are, for example, banks.

but also data providers who are repackaging it and selling it to others as part of other identifying schemes and more refreshed information, not refreshed, but more additional information like credit ratings and all those types of things. So it is being used. ⁓ that's what we've been ⁓ exposing with a new concept that we've launched this year, which is a partner program where we showcase how it is used. So it's not only about

What's interesting for me as a legal entity to have one is how is it used in the industry by a KYB platform, by ⁓ of course, open data vendors, by banks, by ⁓ digital assets ⁓ solution providers and so on and so forth. And we will continue to do that. So expose the value and that will generate hopefully some volumes as well in terms of issuance.

Javier Santamaría 20:39

Okay, and you know that because of the regulatory mandate, like 15 years ago, GLEIF and the LEI has this regulatory smell, but the GLEIF is a private foundation. And as you are explaining now, it works more like a public utility for anyone to benefit. I think certainly it's not a question of price. It's very accessible. It's very cheap. There is a lot of value that can be...

released by any organization accessing freely to the services provided by the foundation.

Ralf Ohlhausen 21:19

Well, how is it financed then actually?

Alexandre Kech 21:22

through the small fee that we're collecting. So every LEI issued is, as I mentioned, around $60, 50 euros. And GLEIF itself, so part of that is for the LEI issuer who does the work of validation of data, verification of data, which is an important and critical part of the process because all LEIs exist as entities and it's verified on a yearly basis ⁓ by our accredited ⁓ LEI issuers.

And GLEIF is receiving $11 out of every LEI issued or renewed for its own operations, data management, ⁓ database, cybersecurity, everything. And salaries and my salary payment as well.

Michael Salmony 22:03

You're a non-profit.

Ralf Ohlhausen 22:04

And it's one for each

legal entity, right? So I need one if I don't need for each branch, because that is normally not a legal entity. But as soon as it's a registered legal entity, then it has a separate LEI.

Alexandre Kech 22:18

Yes, and it's actually one of the criteria and beauty of the system we didn't talk about yet. It doesn't only talk about who is who, but also who owns who at accounting aggregation level. So you have parent-children relationship. So if you look at the GLEIF database and you look at Nestle, for example, you will see Nestle SA at group level, the parent entity, and then you will see all the children and sub-children that ⁓ are linked to Nestle all over the world. So you can have that full

organization tree visibility as well when you engage with a company. And that's quite useful for ⁓ compliance and also risk management in general, whether it's for supply chain management or banking onboarding purposes and so on and so forth.

Michael Salmony 23:07

I think you also said it's linked to individuals. I think that's quite an interesting concept, right? So the CEO sort of has the authority on whether the attribute is verified or not. Or maybe there are multiple roles. Maybe you can explain a little bit how that works.

Alexandre Kech 23:24

So that's where we go into the vLEI concept. So before vLEI, ⁓ the legal entity identifier was focused on entities and that's it. And parents-children relationship between entities. With a vLEI, we add an extra level of identification or at least credentials, which is who is acting on behalf of the entity. So delegation of authority.

And that's made possible through the vLEI because it's a verifiable credential system, a decentralized identity and verifiable credential protocol that enables the chaining of credentials together, meaning that an entity is able to identify and verifiably prove who they are, but also people acting on behalf of that entity, like ⁓ official organizational role, ⁓ like CEO, CFO, directors, for example.

These people are able to carry a credential in their wallet and present themselves as, am the CEO of GLEIF and use those credentials, for example, to sign annual reports. That's what we do at GLEIF, sign a contract, ⁓ authorize a transaction at a bank in the future. Why not? You could also have different, another type of credential called ECR. So engagement context role credentials, are more, ⁓ which are ⁓ more ⁓

a multi-purpose, meaning that you can issue an ECR to any staff in your company to prove that they are working for you as a staff. And they could use that credential to access the building, to connect into a system, to whatever you really want to do, because it is owned and only owned by that individual and issued by the employer.

You could use it as well as a credential for a client to say that client has been KYC'd or is a client of me. So you could issue that credential to a client. You can issue that credential to an IoT device to say that IoT device is providing the data that I'm in control of or I'm accountable for and be used ⁓ to also identify an AI agent in the future. So it's really a ⁓ very robust cryptographic ⁓ approach to ensuring accountability and assuring

link between individual systems and technology and AI agents again in the future to the entity that is accountable for those individuals. The beauty of the system is that it's real time. So you can issue credentials to autonomously as an entity to your staff, but you can revoke it as instantaneously as you've issued them. So if your staff leave the company, you can revoke the credential and automatically if the credential is, is try to be someone's tries to use that credential again.

the status will appear as revoked and you know it's no longer a valid credential.

Michael Salmony 26:19

Well, that's what's.

Ralf Ohlhausen 26:19

As you mentioned, IoT,

I read that. you have this partnership ⁓ with the IOTA IOTA blockchain and the more recent partnership with Chainlink as well. you're strongly going into that well, automated, decentralized financial services world, aren't you?

Alexandre Kech 26:46

We do because I'm going to quote Larry Fink, is the CEO of BlackRock, who was very famous for saying everything will be tokenized, ETFs, equities, bonds, et cetera. And that's, course, is ⁓ the blockchain world is all excited about it and only talks about that. But they always forget about a quote that is two lines under that says,

It will be scalable only if we are solving the challenge of identity verification and only there. clearly vLEI is ⁓ fit for purpose because it is a decentralized identity and verifiable credential protocol that can be used across platforms. So it can be used on IOTA as a blockchain, can be used also on the Ethereum, on any blockchain in a portable way.

So it makes identity and credential portable across multiple platforms, which is as any protocol, like your email, I can send you an email, whatever I'm using as an email server, you will receive it. So that's really the strengths of that identity and verifiable credential protocol. And that's what's needed in blockchain because there are as many blockchains as people on the planet nowadays. And so you want to have a protocol that works across blockchains and across platform and across internet and web 2 web 3

Javier Santamaría 27:58

you

Alexandre Kech 28:06

And that's really what the vLEI delivers. So that's why Chainlink, for example, who understands that cross-chain problem, because they building protocols to enable cross-chain ⁓ digital assets ⁓ portability, they understand that we also need portable identity and credentials. And that's why they've implemented vLEI in their protocols. The same for IOTA, the same for Cardano. And we have more and more ⁓ holes and more interest in that topic.

Still early stage though, very early stage.

Ralf Ohlhausen 28:35

But isn't

Javier Santamaría 28:36

you

Ralf Ohlhausen 28:38

there also a competition coming there with ⁓ DID, I think, is not an alternative approach? who else or what else could be used instead of a vLEI?

Alexandre Kech 28:54

You do have, you're absolutely right. So they are decentralized identity, digital identity, so DID methods as we call them. But the problem is exactly like blockchain. There are as many DID method that they are blockchains and, and implementation. So you have like probably hundreds of them currently, which don't talk to one another and not interoperable. So interoperability is a challenge of DID methods. There are people looking at making them interoperable.

Our view is that it's probably better, especially for organizational identity, to ⁓ have not only a protocol that works across platforms, but a protocol that has a very strong governance framework with, as a root of trust, GLEIF, overseen by 70 regulators in 50 countries. You cannot have a better root of trust than that.

Ralf Ohlhausen 29:48

Is there ⁓ in and within the European the eIDAS ⁓ framework? Is there an agreement that the LEI is the is the one and only or could we have different identifiers in different countries and get some rivalry there and get some whatever decoherence?

Alexandre Kech 30:08

So in the eIDAS 2.0 framework, LEI is one of the identifiers that can be used to identify a legal entity. The other identifiers would be, for example, a domestic identifier, like a business registry identifier, which is fine, as long as we can connect and do the interoperability as we also doing as a connector between identifiers. In terms of vLEI, that's the step that we currently ⁓ having, which is

making it an acceptable protocol in the eIDAS framework, technical framework. we are part of ETSI, which is the European ⁓ technical standards. ⁓ I forgot what the I stands for, but it's the organizations that establishes technical standards for eIDAS and other ⁓ framework in Europe. And our objective is to ensure that ultimately the vLEI protocol will also be an accepted protocol in that ⁓

in that context.

Michael Salmony 31:11

This is actually a podcast for geeky people, but for those who maybe are not quite so deep into the topic, maybe you could just make it a little bit tangible. What does an identifier look like? mean, is it a smart card that the CEO carries around in his pocket? Will it be an app on his phone one day? What physically does the identifier look like that you're creating? Or is it a 26 digit number? I think that's one incarnation as well, right?

Alexandre Kech 31:16

and

So that's a very good question.

Yes, I guess the most ⁓ relatable analogy would be ⁓ two things. So your ⁓ Apple wallet, let's say. So you have a wallet that is on your Apple phone or a Google wallet on your Android phone, where you hold today different types of credentials. You ⁓ can hold your ticket to access a plane or you can hold your ⁓ membership card, for example. The future ⁓ as it's developing,

is that we will, that type of wallet, but they're likely not to be commercial wallet, they might be also state wallet, with all your identity, your driving license, your academic credentials. So these are type of credentials that you can prove, that you can show ⁓ either through a QR code verification or through a tap from the phone on a device that can prove who you are and what type of credentials you have. The vLEI is exactly the same thing.

So alongside your identity, your driving license, your academic records, you would have your CEO credentials proving that I am the CEO of GLEIF. And I can use that credential in specific use when I need it for docu-signing documents, signing a document electronically, ⁓ accessing my office, ⁓ which I'm the only one who can access it via tapping on the device. So those type ⁓ of use cases.

Michael Salmony 33:10

Very nice. I think Javier is now coming back. ⁓

Alexandre Kech 33:14

The is back.

Ralf Ohlhausen 33:16

Yeah,

we just lost to...

Javier Santamaría 33:16

Yeah, I'm sorry, it was

kicked out. I don't know what killed my computer. Riverside decided something on its own side. Sorry.

Alexandre Kech 33:23

you

Ralf Ohlhausen 33:26

Okay, well, welcome back. But I was just to ask about the, you know, this whole cross border business and payments, where it's, of course, particularly important to have a global identifier rather than whatever domestic ones. But we're just into this ISO 20022.

Alexandre Kech 33:26

Don't worry.

Ralf Ohlhausen 33:54

the transition there.

Alexandre Kech 33:55

you

Ralf Ohlhausen 33:57

And if, if, if we have like structured addresses, which is a big part of it, would that not be then more sufficient to have companies identified? So is that a good thing or a bad thing for you? The ISO 20022?

Alexandre Kech 34:13

ISO 20022 enables and allows for the LEI to be provided alongside name and address. And it's ⁓ actually not a bad thing, it's actually a good thing because it ⁓ really helps.

have a complete picture of the entity you're paying. Again, going back to our conversation, LEI identifies a legal entity. So who is accountable for the payments ultimately and who you will sue if something happens with that payment. But you might need a name and address that is not necessarily the name and address or the name probably, but the address of the legal entity. could be a branch again that you're paying and that bank would

Michael Salmony 34:38

Thank you.

Alexandre Kech 34:53

prefer to receive as an address because it enables them to understand better and verify better who the payee is. So I think it is again, complimentary and FATF understood it. So the latest FATF recommendation 16 does identify for payer and payee the need for legal entities to identify the name, the address, and mandates the use of an identifier now. So it recommends the use of LEI.

connected BIC or ⁓ national identities. But we anticipate that for cross border payments, LEI will be the preferred choice because ⁓ national identity or business registry identification are not necessarily easy to discover. ⁓ If you go on the Chinese business registry, good luck, unless you read Chinese, to identify and find information that you need. LEI standardized that in English.

If you go to Japan, same problem, et cetera. So we believe that the new FATF recommendation 16 for cross-border payments will push the adoption of the LEI as well in cross-border payments as a very good compliment to the additional information that is provided like name and address of the, and account of course, IBAN of the company.

Michael Salmony 36:11

I think we're gradually coming towards the end of our time, so unless Alexandre you have anything important you think we should still be saying or Ralf or Javier have any last topics, Ralf has something to say Javier as well.

Ralf Ohlhausen 36:21

the end.

Javier Santamaría 36:22

If

Ralf Ohlhausen 36:24

you

Javier Santamaría 36:27

I may, Alex, what are your next plans and your most immediate targets for the next year and or say 2026, 2027?

Alexandre Kech 36:38

So to 2026, 2027 is we work, we focusing on three use cases. So we have capital market digital assets. So that's what I mentioned about working with blockchains and other provider of service in that space to support the adoption of vLEI and LEI in digital capital markets. In other words,

In payments, clearly it's about establishing market practices with industry groups like the Payments Market Practice Group, for example, or working with the EPC and other industry groups to establish ⁓ how the LEI supports that industry and ensure that as we are getting to the ⁓ FATF Recommendation 16 deadline of 2030, people know how to use the LEI and are using it.

And finally, it's also around capital markets, sorry, trade, where we working very actively with the ICC, so the International Chamber of Commerce, and especially their digital standards initiative, DSI, to adopt the LEI in that world. That's a bit more complicated because you need a lot more LEIs to cover trade. And there, it's all about finding new ways of issuing LEIs to ensure that we can cover that volume ⁓ challenge that we sometimes have.

And finally, I will finish by explaining that ⁓ Global North is well, LEI is used a lot in Global North, Europe, US, ⁓ North Asia, not too much in Global South. So we also have a regional focus in Middle East and Africa and Latin America and Southeast Asia for adoption.

Ralf Ohlhausen 38:15

I had the same question, so we are good.

Michael Salmony 38:18

okay. So unless anybody has any last minute interventions, I would call it a day. So thank you very much to Javier and Ralf and thank you especially to Alexandre for your time. You've already got your Christmas tree behind you, your Christmas decorations. Or is that your company logo? I don't know.

Alexandre Kech 38:35

That pleasure.

Here's the company

logo. But it looks like a tree or ball indeed.

Michael Salmony 38:46

It looks very good anyway, very festive. Okay, so wonderful. So thank you very much for your time and thanks for the great discussion. I think it's a really complex topic, but I think we broke it down and hope many of the listeners found it interesting. So ⁓ thank you to the panellists here and thank you to those who switched on to the TPT again. Again, please.

comment and reshare and repost and nominate us for the Peace Nobel Prize and anything else if you feel appropriate. Okay, see you next time. Bye bye.

Alexandre Kech 39:17

You

Thank you so much.

Bye.