GLEIF Expands Global Footprint of Validation Agents with Sparkasse Bank Malta plc and Diligencia

Growing support for the LEI as a universal identifier results in expanded Validation Agent network which covers key markets including Europe, North America, China, Africa and the Middle East.

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) today announces two new Validation Agents within the Global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) System:

• Sparkasse Bank Malta plc, a European bank offering corporate and private banking, investment and custody services; and
• Diligencia, a UK-based leading provider of corporate intelligence and due diligence solutions in the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

With the addition of Sparkasse Bank Malta plc and Diligencia, the number of Validation Agents globally increases to more than 10, spanning Africa, China, Europe, India, the Middle East and North America.

GLEIF introduced the Validation Agent Framework in September 2020, to enable banks and other regulated institutions to leverage their KYC and AML onboarding procedures to help their clients obtain LEIs. Validation Agents play an important role within the Global LEI System. By providing their client base with LEIs, they promote financial inclusion, while creating value and opportunities such as cross-border supply chain relationships, thanks to easier counterparty verification and simplified cross-border payments. In return, Validation Agents can utilize the LEI to accelerate their internal digital transformation, in areas such as customer onboarding, payments and other transactions, and contract signing.

The widespread and sustained demand for Validation Agent status provides a strong endorsement for McKinsey’s research findings, which revealed that broader adoption of LEIs could save banks an estimated U.S. $2-4 billion per annum in client onboarding efficiencies alone. For the Validation Agent, client onboarding and management processes are streamlined, saving time and money.

Paul Mifsud, Managing Director of Sparkasse Bank Malta plc, comments: “It is our philosophy to establish long-term relationships with our customers ensuring the provision of efficient and seamless financial solutions. We recognize the LEI’s value in creating the transparency that strengthen ties between organizations. Our approval as a Validation Agent is a significant milestone. It enables us to streamline our approach to client lifecycle management, enhance our customer experience, and provides a uniquely powerful foundation to create new value-added services for our corporate clients.”

In line with GLEIF’s objective to increase voluntary LEI adoption outside of mandated use-cases in capital markets, the Validation Agent role has been designed to benefit not only banks and financial institutions, but any organization that performs relevant validation and verification practices using accurate data, based exclusively on primary sources. Diligencia is one such organization.

“Diligencia was established with the strong belief that access to accurate information promotes stable economies and provides a foundation for growth,” adds Nouri Bakkali, Managing Director, Diligencia. “There is enormous potential for the MEA region to lead the way in terms of LEI issuance growth as global investors seek the transparency, trust, and confidence to engage with markets such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As a Validation Agent, we look forward to working with GLEIF and our partners to further accelerate the issuance of LEIs across the region to broaden access to reliable entity data.”

Stephan Wolf, CEO, GLEIF, concludes: “The global appeal of the Validation Agent role comes from its ability to deliver tangible benefits for both the Agent organization and its legal entity customers. The processes are very similar for obtaining an LEI and customer onboarding to a financial or regulated institution. A raft of information related to legal status and ownership structure, among other things, has to be provided and verified in both scenarios. By de-duplicating this process, Validation Agents can create efficiencies for both themselves, and their clients, while equipping their clients with the means of establishing trust with any other legal entity anywhere in the world, irrespective of language or location. Transparency and trust sit at the heart of good business practices.”

Sparkasse Bank Malta plc and Diligencia both partnered with Ubisecure, a leading LEI issuer. Simon Wood, CEO, Ubisecure comments: ”GLEIF-approved Validation Agents are using Ubisecure's LEI Everywhere program to streamline LEI issuance for client onboarding and refresh. We've worked closely with the GLEIF, and our Validation Agent partners to develop the ideal solution – an API-first, automated platform that ensures Validation Agents can register LEIs without barriers or friction, and at massive scale. We are happy to support Validation Agents as they contribute to the widespread adoption of LEIs and help meet the GLEIF goal to place LEIs at the center of modern, connected business.”

For more information on the Validation Agent Framework, please visit the GLEIF website.

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