The GLEIF has partnered with the IOTA Foundation to explore how standardised organisational digital identity can enable verifiable on-chain trust for businesses.
IOTA is a distributed ledger infrastructure designed to support scalable digital trust applications, including smart contracts, decentralised identity standards, and a sustainable, incentive-based architecture. The foundation is also a co-founder of the Trade Worldwide Information Network (TWIN), a decentralised trade infrastructure built on IOTA, offering real-time, verifiable data sharing across borders.
Promoting the digitalisation of global trade
The collaboration between IOTA and GLEIF (The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) aims to enable the digitalisation of trusted global trade by maximising inclusion and interoperability, focusing on exploring how the features of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) and verifiable LEI (vLEI) can be used to improve transparency and data integrity within the IOTS and TWIN infrastructure. LEI and vLEI deliver a globally interoperable, standardised identity for any organisation participating in a trade transaction.
The initial integrations are looking for how organisations can establish their digital identity in either the IOTA or LEI systems more easily, as well as reuse it across both to create instant, on-chain trust for businesses participating in global supply chains. This approach promotes the adoption of global standards to improve compliance, reduce friction, and optimise accessibility. Real-world applications include upgrading checks at ports and customs, simplifying complex and fragmented supply chains, enabling secure cross-border payments, and supporting universal access to trade finance, as well as supporting the development of digital public infrastructures (DPIs).
GLEIF and the IOTS Foundation believe that organisational identity and verification are key to making global trade more efficient, transparent, and inclusive. This can be realised through decentralised, open-source infrastructures by measuring the potential to connect complementary ecosystems and combine their experience in the development and application of verifiable credentials. This, together with the integration of the LEI and vLEI into the TWIN infrastructure, helps improve compliance, reduce friction, and unlock new opportunities for businesses of all sizes to participate in global commerce.
