GLEIF partners with KVK to support instant due diligence

As part of their collaboration, GLEIF and KVK intend to offer global data users direct access to the official registry data included within Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) records, assisting in optimising due diligence and delivering more transparency to worldwide transactions. Each LEI links to a verified company identity record included in the Global LEI Index, an open data bank that is free for all organisations to access, with every LEI record containing reference data registered by local authoritative sources to allow the identification of legal entities worldwide. This new linking capability provides a URL specific to the LEI records of entities included by KVK, offering direct access to the official registry information and associated data tools on the KVK website.

Just a month before this partnership, GLEIF announced its alliance with Finbridge Global to augment the identity verification process for fintech providers. This move intended to simplify the due diligence efforts of financial institutions and investors, assisting in forging collaborative agreements across the global financial services sector.

Optimising KYC, KYS, and due diligence

Through this initiative, the two organisations aim to advance Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Supplier (KYS) checks, as well as other due diligence obligations, with an entity’s registry data on the KVK website now being available to any counterparty globally through the Global LEI Index. This mitigates the need for global data users first to confirm KVK as the relevant registration authority, identify and navigate to the right website, translate into a local language, and then manually search for an organisation leveraging its business registration number.

Furthermore, local businesses across the Netherlands are set to be able to benefit from scale discoverability and identifiability worldwide, with this being especially beneficial for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) centring their efforts on expanding their operations into additional markets. Representatives from GLEIF commented on the collaboration with KVK, mentioning that business registries stand as an important part of promoting transparency across the global economy. However, locating and effectively validating information regarding local organisations can be a complex task. Optimising access to authoritative data about organisations in the Netherlands aims to expand both trust and transparency across the broader economy. At the same time, this initiative developed between GLEIF and KVK underlines the larger opportunities for business registries globally to utilise the LEI as a central data connector.