Connecting the Corporate Dots Globally with the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

Making Finance Work for Africa and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) hosted a webinar entitled: "Connecting the Corporate Dots Globally with the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)” on 14 November 2019. The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) is a 20-character, alpha-numeric code based on the ISO 17442 standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The LEI connects to key reference information that enables clear and unique identification of legal entities participating in financial transactions. Each LEI contains information about an entity’s ownership structure, answering the questions of 'who is who’ and ‘who owns whom’. Participants learned about LEI's regulatory use and the widespread support of LEIs in EU, US, Asia and other regions. Use cases for LEIs were also discussed, including SMEs, and how LEI can be transformative for these businesses, for example in the field of trade finance.