Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation

What Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation does

GLEIF is a supra-national not-for-profit foundation established in 2014 under Swiss law by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to operate the Global LEI System. Its core function is managing the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), a 20-character alphanumeric code serving as an international standard identifier for legal entities engaged in financial transactions, along with its digital counterpart the verifiable LEI (vLEI), which uses verifiable credentials technology to enable non-repudiable identification of legal status, ownership structures, and authorized representatives in digital business activities. GLEIF operates the Global LEI Index, described as the only global online source for open, standardized, and high-quality legal entity reference data, and provides API access, bulk data files (Golden Copy, Delta Files, Concatenated Files), and LEI Mapping files linking LEIs to other identifiers (BIC, ISIN, MIC, QCC, GEM). The platform is embedded in ISO 17442 and ITU-T X.509 digital certificates, with supporting ISO 20275 and ISO 5009 standards.

GLEIF does not sell directly to end users. Its go-to-market operates through an accredited ecosystem: over 30 LEI Issuers (Local Operating Units) that include Bloomberg, London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and Tokyo Stock Exchange; more than 100 Registration Agents; and 8 Qualified vLEI Issuers (SHECA, TOPPAN Edge, TradeGo, Global vLEI, Certizen, FINEMA, CFCA, Provenant). GLEIF's core customer base spans financial institutions and regulators (for KYC, AML, sanctions screening), legal entities needing cross-border identification, and financial market infrastructures (for interoperability). LEI fees are set by individual issuers, not GLEIF, and the foundation provides open data services free of charge in keeping with its public-good mandate. As a result, GLEIF is funded through the Global LEI System's operational structure rather than direct commercial revenue.

Name

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation

Legal name

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)

Website

https://gleif.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Swiss not-for-profit established by the Financial Stability Board in 2014 to operate the Global LEI System, providing open standardized legal entity identification data and verifiable credentials (vLEI) to financial institutions, regulators, and businesses worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Legal Entity Identification Infrastructure

NAICS

Public Administration (92), Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services (519), Other Similar Organizations (except Business, Professional, Labor, and Political Organizations) (813990)

SIC

Finance Services (6199)

akta.pro primary industry

Decentralized Identity (DID) & Verifiable Credentials (BPAMAEAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Data Validation, Enrichment & UTI/LEI Reference Services (FSAFAJAH), Device Identity & Certificate-Based Authentication (PKI) (BPAMAEAL), Model Transparency, Explainability & Interpretability (XAI) (HDAAAMAB)

Keywords

• Legal entity identifier
• Organizational identity data
• Verifiable credentials infrastructure
• Entity reference data
• Global identity registry

Headquarters

HQ city

Basel

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Open Data Services: GLEIF provides open, free access to the Global LEI Index and LEI data. As a not-for-profit organization established by the Financial Stability Board, GLEIF's primary mission is public good rather than revenue generation. The organization is supported through the Global LEI System's operational structure.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) operates the Global LEI System, an internationally recognized organizational identity management infrastructure. It maintains the Global LEI Index — the only global online source for open, standardized, high-quality legal entity reference data — and provides the verifiable LEI (vLEI), a digital counterpart credential enabling machine-verifiable identification of legal entities, ownership structures, and authorized representatives across digital business activities.

Product overview

GLEIF operates as a platform organization managing the Global LEI System, an internationally recognized organizational identity management infrastructure and Digital Public Infrastructure. The core offering centers on the Global LEI Index—a data-rich global directory that is open and free to access. The product portfolio includes the LEI Search web tool and GLEIF API for data access, Golden Copy/Delta Files and Concatenated Files for bulk data distribution, LEI Mapping for cross-referencing identifiers, and the verifiable LEI (vLEI) for digital credentials. The ecosystem encompasses LEI Issuers (Local Operating Units), Registration Agents, Validation Agents, and Qualified vLEI Issuers. Supporting services include Data Quality Management, LEI Challenge Facility, LEI Statistics, and Code Lists. The platform recently added GLEIF AI Search for AI-powered semantic search capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Global LEI Index The only global online source for open, standardized, and high-quality legal entity reference data, providing a searchable directory of all LEI records worldwide for verification of business identities free of charge.
• LEI Search Web-based search tool for accessing the complete Legal Entity Identifier data pool, allowing any interested party to easily search and retrieve LEI records and related entity information.
• Verifiable LEI (vLEI) The digital counterpart to the LEI, providing machine-verifiable credentials for legal entities that can be used across digitized business processes and transactions for trusted organizational identity verification.
• GLEIF API Programmatic interface enabling developers to search, retrieve, and integrate LEI data including entity information, relationship data, and mapping files.
• GLEIF AI Search AI-powered search functionality for the Global LEI Index enabling semantic and natural language queries to find legal entity information.
• LEI Mapping Files linking LEIs to other key entity identifiers including BIC, ISIN, MIC, S&P CIQ Company ID, OpenCorporates ID, QCC Code, and GEM Entity ID, enabling cross-referencing across identifier systems.
• GLEIF Golden Copy and Delta Files Daily consolidated snapshots (Golden Copy) and incremental updates (Delta Files) of LEI data for bulk download, maintaining operational integrity of the Global LEI System.
• GLEIF Concatenated Files Combined LEI data files from all LEI Issuers, providing complete coverage of the global LEI population in standardized formats for data integration purposes.
• Level 1 Data (Who is Who) Basic LEI reference data including legal name, address, and other identifying information that answers the question of 'who is who' for legal entities.
• Level 2 Data (Who Owns Whom) Relationship data showing ownership structures, answering the question of 'who owns whom' including direct and indirect relationships between legal entities.
• Data Quality Management Comprehensive program ensuring data quality including proactive management, data quality checks, dashboards, reports, and the challenge facility for LEI data verification and updates.
• LEI Challenge Facility Central challenge facility available for LEI Search that enables any interested party to trigger verification and, where required, speedy update of LEI records including related relationship information.
• LEI Statistics Interactive graphs, world map drill-down, and key facts and figures on the global LEI population including total LEIs issued and country-level distribution.
• Code Lists Standardized code lists including ISO 20275 Entity Legal Forms, ISO 5009 Official Organizational Roles, and GLEIF Accepted Legal Jurisdictions for consistent LEI data representation.

Quantifiable outcome

• Active LEI population surpassed 3 million in Q1 2026
• +2 more outcomes

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation HubflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 18 June 2026Project Aperta - BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre initiative exploring cross-border open finance interoperability. GLEIF standards contribute to trusted interoperability layer linking open finance networks of UK, UAE, Brazil, Hong Kong SAR, and India.
• Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 March 2026CFIT developed the Digital Company ID Blueprint with industry partners, creating an interoperable prototype for reusable digital identity for UK businesses. The initiative aligns with LEI standards for cross-border interoperability.
• ChainlinkcoreTechnology or Integration · 21 January 2026Chainlink provides end-to-end interoperability platform supporting institutional tokenization. Collaboration enables integration of LEI in tokenized asset workflows and blockchain-based financial infrastructure.
• vLEI Hackathon ParticipantsminorOthers · 3 December 2025GLEIF's vLEI Hackathon created solutions for digital trust in Industry 4.0, including MSC Trustgate's winning solution embedding vLEI credentials in document-signing portal and YourData's tool for authenticating corporate AI agents.
• Trust Over IP FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022Jointly published Ecosystem Governance Framework for Digitally Verifiable LEI, establishing standards for the vLEI credential system.
• SWIFTcoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2018LEI incorporated into ISO data models through SWIFT. Collaboration enables LEI integration in cross-border payments and financial messaging infrastructure.
• Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2012Worldwide group of financial market regulators, public authorities, and observers from more than 50 countries that oversee GLEIF and the Global LEI System to increase transparency and fight financial crime.
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO)coreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2012ISO 17442 standard published for LEI. Part 2 (2019) enables embedding LEIs in digital certificates (ITU-T X.509 | ISO/IEC9594-8). ISO 20275 for Entity Legal Forms and ISO 5009 for Official Organizational Roles.
• Financial Stability Board (FSB)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2011FSB established GLEIF in 2014 and continues to oversee and drive the LEI initiative. The G20 endorsed the LEI Charter, with FSB taking the lead to prepare the LEI governance framework.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves9 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Emerging players

• ID.me: Digital identity network for identity verification and group affiliation. ID.me is a peer only in the broad digital-identity verification category; it focuses on individuals rather than legal entities, making it a thematic rather than direct peer.
• Trulioo: Global digital-identity verification platform used for KYC/AML and business verification. Trulioo overlaps with GLEIF in the entity-verification workflow but operates commercially and serves a broader consumer/identity stack.
• OpenCorporates: Largest open database of companies and directors globally, with ~200M legal entities. OpenCorporates overlaps with GLEIF on open legal-entity data and is sometimes cited as a complementary or competing source of corporate transparency data.

Broad incumbents

• SWIFT: Global financial-messaging infrastructure that GLEIF has partnered with for ISO data-model integration. SWIFT and GLEIF both serve as cross-border financial backbones, with GLEIF providing entity identity and SWIFT providing payment messaging; they are complementary rather than directly competing.
• Bureau van Dijk (Moody's): Subsidiary of Moody's providing entity data (Orbis, Moody's Analytics). Comparable as a commercial legal-entity data provider, though GLEIF's open-data model and regulatory mandate differentiate its positioning.
• Dun & Bradstreet: Provider of global business identity and entity data (D-U-N-S Number) widely used in compliance, KYC, and supply-chain contexts. D&B is the largest commercial counterpart to GLEIF's open LEI system, though GLEIF is the only non-proprietary, supranational alternative.
• Refinitiv (LSEG) / PermID: Operates PermID, a proprietary open entity-identifier system widely used in financial markets. PermID is the closest direct commercial analogue to the LEI for legal-entity reference data and competes for adoption in data workflows and KYC use cases.

Others

• Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF): Industry-standards organization advancing decentralized identity and verifiable credentials. DIF and GLEIF co-develop the vLEI ecosystem governance framework (alongside Trust Over IP), making DIF a direct peer in the standards and verifiable-credentials space.
• ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization): UN agency that issues passport/national-identity standards (MRZ, PKD) - structurally analogous to GLEIF as a supranational standards body for identity credentials. Useful analog for how supranational identity infrastructure is governed and monetized.
• Trust Over IP Foundation: Linux Foundation-hosted initiative defining governance frameworks for verifiable digital trust ecosystems. GLEIF co-published the Ecosystem Governance Framework for Digitally Verifiable LEI with ToIP, making it a core standards peer for the vLEI architecture.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/gleif
• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCP2xdWOFG7dWNaFIBKyejhg
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/global-legal-entity-identifier-foundation-gleif-

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation