LEI in Cross-Border Payments

The LEI enables cross-border payment transactions to become faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more inclusive.

When the LEI is added as a data attribute in payment messages, any originator or beneficiary legal entity can be precisely, instantly, and automatically identified across borders. As payment market infrastructures worldwide move to support instant payments, the ability to verify and validate the originator and beneficiary of a transaction in near real time is a foundational requirement to enable consumers, businesses, and financial institutions to confirm that funds are transferred across international borders to the correct entity.   The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has endorsed the LEI for supporting the goals of its G20-endorsed Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments. As part of this initiative, and in collaboration with other industry standard-setting bodies, the FSB is currently working to promote standardized use in ISO 20022 payments messaging to mitigate constraints in cross-border payments. This includes the definition and harmonization of data fields - including identifiers - being transmitted along the payment chain.     GLEIF is working with leading stakeholders in the payments industry to demonstrate the significant value that the LEI brings to non-financial corporates and financial institutions when used in cross-border payment flows. The five key use cases are: screening; KYC and client onboarding; fraud detection and fight against vendor scams; e-invoice reconciliation; and account-to-account validation.

Read on to learn about these use cases and GLEIF’s pilot engagements:

The Value of the LEI: Cross-Border Payments Pilot Engagements

• Ceviant

• Moody's

• Finema

• REGTEK (Beijing) Technologies

• C2FO

• Oceanpayment

• Japan-eSeal

• Legal Entity Identifier India Limited and Working Group

• Nth Exception

• Bloomberg

• Element22

• London Stock Exchange Group

• Moody's

• WM Datenservice

• The Transparency Fabric - (Watch the video now!)

• LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Market Infrastructure Implementations

Publications

Digital Identity Guide for Tax Administration

Project Aperta: Enabling Cross-Border Data Portability through Open Finance Interoperability

Project Agorá - A shared programmable platform for wholesale cross-border payments

RTGS 2: a launchpad for innovation − speech by Victoria Cleland

GLEIF Joins Our Global Partner Program to Expand Trusted Business Identity Across Borders

Clearing the Confusion: The Need for Clarity in Usage of BIC vs LEI in Cross-Border Transactions

Briefing: Verification of Payee

The Road to Interoperability: Challenges in the Evolving 2024 eInvoice Landscape

G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments: Consolidated progress report for 2024

LEI adoption in payments grows amidst regulatory push

A multi-tool for cross-border payments: the power of Legal Entity Identifiers − speech by Victoria Cleland - Given at the FSB-GLEIF-ROC Global LEI Conference

Options to improve adoption of the LEI, in Particular the use of the LEI in Cross-border Payments

Global adoption of the LEI (Legal Identity Identifier) in ISO20022 Payment Messages – 2021 White paper

Addressing efficiency in payments and working capital to deliver Sustainability and Growth

The power of data, technology and collaboration to combat money laundering across institutions and borders

Harmonized ISO 20022 data requirements for enhancing cross-border payments

Payment Transparency Standards

Ultimate Parties in Cross-Border Payment Messages

How LEIs Benefit Cross Border Payments

Global Adoption of the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) in ISO 20022 Payment Messages – December 2023 (Version 2)

Scaling the use of Digital Identities in Trade

Leveraging the Legal Entity Identifier to mitigate the risk of financial crime and enhance fraud prevention in cross-border payments

The Ultimate Passport for Cross-Border Payments

Further Reading

Featuring the LEI

Validation Agents

LEI in Regulations

Why the LEI?