The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) today announces China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) as the first Chinese Qualified vLEI Issuer (QVI) within the verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI) ecosystem. CFCA is an authoritative electronic certification body established by the People's Bank of China and approved by the National Information Security Administration.
The vLEI is a new form of digitized organizational identity pioneered by GLEIF and standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It addresses the urgent global need for digitized, automated authentication and verification of organizations and the individuals acting on their behalf. It supports sensitive business transactions and official interactions across use cases where digital trust is paramount.
As a QVI, CFCA will utilize the vLEI to complement and interoperate with existing Chinese identity verification tools for enterprises and individuals. vLEI role credentials will enable individuals affiliated with legal entities to be credibly disclosed and recognized, helping businesses mitigate identity fraud risks and improve the efficiency and quality of risk control and compliance identification in areas such as trade and payment transactions. For individuals, including their vLEI credentials in personal identity records will help to mitigate fraud risks and enhance their identity credibility when conducting actions on behalf of an entity in a certain role.
Alexandre Kech, CEO of GLEIF, comments: “The digitalization of businesses has given rise to many new identity-based risks, and confidence in digital authenticity is still in short supply. As businesses increasingly cooperate and transact remotely and across borders, the LEI and vLEI systems have been designed to ease global trade by ensuring verifiable organizational identity and building trust into every business relationship. Becoming China's first qualified vLEI issuer is a recognition of CFCA's technical prowess and influence in the fight against global financial crime and evidence of its continued leadership in financial technology innovation and security in the digital age."
Gang Zhu, General Manager of CFCA, comments: "Since its establishment in 1998, CFCA has been dedicated to driving the secure digital transformation of the financial industry and has been an engaged, innovative member of the Global LEI System. As a Qualified vLEI Issuer, we will actively explore how this new form of digital identity can augment China's existing tools to advance the transparency and verifiability of Chinese business and trade data. There are a great many observable applications for the vLEI and the potential benefits, both domestically and on the global stage, are manifold. We look forward to collaborating closely with GLEIF to advance this important field."
Now qualified, CFCA will explore various vLEI-enabled digital identity scenarios. These include real-time account registration verification, tamper-resistant digital signing, verifiable SME credit records, ESG-based credentialing, simplified cross-border payments, secure judicial data verification, and AI-driven customs oversight.
Already an early participant in the GLEIF Certification Authorities Stakeholder Group, CFCA was confirmed in 2021 as the first Certification Authority globally to become a Validation Agent in the Global LEI System and was the first to demonstrate a commercial model for embedding LEIs in digital certificates.
For more information on the verifiable LEI (vLEI), please visit the GLEIF website here.
