The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF), a prestigious international organization in the field of digital identity, recently set up its China office in the Yangshan Free Trade Zone in Shanghai's Lin-gang Special Area, following approval from relevant authorities.

The move aims to boost the digital transformation of shipping and trade by facilitating the promotion, research, and exchange of the legal entity identifier (LEI) and verifiable LEI (vLEI).

Founded in 2014 by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, GLEIF is a non-profit international organization dedicated to supporting the implementation and application of LEI. The LEI system, having been widely adopted in Europe and the United States, acts as a trusted contact list for enterprises worldwide, addressing risk issues arising from the lack of a unified LEI in global financial markets.

vLEI, an advanced iteration, serves as a novel digital identity marker for legal entities in the digital realm. It utilizes distributed verification technology to create role credentials, enabling instant and trustworthy verification of individual roles within legal entities outside their organizational boundaries.

The LEI system has commenced integration with blockchain networks in the shipping and trade sectors, allowing foreign enterprises' LEIs to be securely and credibly mapped with domestic authoritative distributed digital identities. This facilitates rapid access to blockchain networks for international shipping and trade, fostering collaboration in areas such as electronic bills of lading, electronic letters of credit, cross-border payments, and financing services.

Leveraging Lin-gang's innovative openness in shipping, finance, trade, and cross-border data, GLEIF will actively promote LEI and vLEI solutions in digital trade and shipping, contributing to the digital transformation of global finance, shipping, and trade.