Share these talks and lectures with your colleagues
Invite colleaguesPractice paper
The value of the Legal Entity Identifier for the payments industry
Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems,
13
(4),
322-336
(2019)
Abstract
In November 2011, the G20 initiated the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) programme for the development of a global system to uniquely identify parties engaged in financial transactions. Since then, over 1.4 million legal entities in over 200 jurisdictions have registered for an LEI. This paper describes the progress made in the implementation of the programme and sets out the potential benefits that LEIs offer as a global means of verifying identity in payments. It describes existing plans to incorporate LEIs into payments through the move to the ISO 20022 messaging standard, and the existing barriers to this adoption. It concludes by laying out a ‘call to action’ to all market participants (national international, public and private) explaining the steps required to realise the full potential LEIs can bring to the payments industry and the wider economy.
Keywords: FSB; Bank of England; GLEIF; LEI Regulatory Oversight Committee; ISO 17442 LEI; ISO 20022; Legal Entity Identifier
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Victoria Cleland is the Bank of England’s Executive Director for Banking, Payments and Innovation. She leads the teams responsible for the operation and strategic development of payment system services, including the UK’s real-time gross settlement infrastructure and the Bank of England’s wholesale and retail banking operations, including the provision of emergency liquidity assistance. Victoria is also a member of the Bank’s RTGS/CHAPS Board. She has held various roles at the Bank of England, including Chief Cashier, Deputy Head of the Bank’s Special Resolution Unit, Private Secretary to the Deputy Governor and Senior Manager in the Market Infrastructure Division.
Gerard Hartsink has been appointed by the Financial Stability Board in June 2014 as the first chairman of the GLEIF Board of Directors. He serves as member of the World Trade Board that has as objective to enable global trade with support of digital technologies. He is active in organisations promoting e-commerce (member of the Digital Economy Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce [ICC]) and e-governance (member of the Forum Standaardisatie of the Dutch government) and is Head of the Dutch delegation of ISO TC 307 Blockchain and DLT. He has broad experience in the payments, securities and forex industry. He has served as Chairman of CLS Bank International, the European Payments Council and the RMG of ISO 20022 and as Board member of SWIFT, LCH.Clearnet Group, Euroclear Netherlands and the Euro Banking Association (EBA). As former Senior Executive Vice President of ABN AMRO, he has over 30 years’ experience in sales, product development, regulatory affairs, information management and operations.
