China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) has launched the first commercial demonstration of an LEI (Legal Entity Identifier) within a digital certificate. In addition, CFCA has been confirmed as GLEIF’s (The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation) inaugural Certification Authority (CA) Validation Agent.
These developments by CFCA follow the recent launch of the GLEIF CA Stakeholder Group, created as a platform for GLEIF to collaborate with CAs and Trust Service Providers (TSPs) on the coordination and promotion of a global approach to LEI usage across digital identity products.
CFCA’s advances are significant because they are the earliest reported successes aligned to the direction of this industry initiative, which is aimed at achieving a critical mass of LEIs embedded within digital certificates.
Stephan Wolf, CEO of GLEIF, said in a statement: “This progress by CFCA on both fronts is very welcome as it moves us one step closer to broad LEI usage in digital certificates globally. Realizing the goal of universal LEI usage in digital identity products will be an important step in enhancing trust and creating innovation opportunities across private sector digital identity management applications.
“Digital certificates linked by an LEI to verified, regularly updated and freely available entity reference data held within the Global LEI System are easier to manage, aggregate and maintain. The result will be significant efficiencies and far less complexity for certificate owners and the provision of greater transparency for all users of the internet and participants within digital exchanges.”
CFCA’s software digitally stamps a document, which embeds an LEI in accordance with international standards. When the document is opened and certificate properties are displayed, the LEI is shown and a link provided for lookup. Naijin Lu, from CFCA’s Strategic Development Department, said in a statement: “Incorporating LEI into our digital identity products brings many benefits to certificate users, while being very helpful in constructing a digital identity ecosystem…In the future, we will actively explore other application scenarios of LEI in digital identification field, such as vLEI. “