The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) today announced a new initiative with the UK business registry, Companies House, to simplify international identification of UK businesses for Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) data users. They will have access via URL links updated within LEI records of UK businesses to check a firm’s Companies House registration data.
As easy as with one click, LEI users can search registration data including an entity’s compliance with KYC or KYS (Know Your Supplier), facilitating a transparent due diligence process.
KYC is an obligation for any organisation seeking to do business with a LEI-holding limited company registered in the UK.
It removes the requirement for global data users to confirm Companies House as the relevant registration authority, identify and navigate to the correct website, translate into local language, and then manually search for an organisation using its business registration number.
As a result, UK businesses, especially SMEs, stand to benefit from increased discoverability.
Every LEI indicates a verified company and links to their identity record held in the Global LEI Index. Each LEI record contains key reference information registered by local authoritative sources to enable the clear and unique identification of legal entities globally.
Alexandre Kech, CEO, GLEIF, commented: “GLEIF and Companies House are on a mission to drive corporate transparency, bringing significant benefits to global marketplaces engaging with the UK. Enabling LEI data users to click through to the registration data and official documentation will make the ‘business of doing business’ with UK firms faster and easier to navigate. By connecting directly to the official data about these organisations we’re simplifying due diligence for counterparties all around the world. This initiative reaffirms the benefits of leveraging the LEI as a central data connector to all business registries, everywhere.”
Louise Smyth, Chief Executive, Companies House, comments: “Thanks to our collaboration with GLEIF, LEI data users can now directly access a wide range of business data held at Companies House simply and securely, enabling a new level of transparency for UK firms.”
“This creates new efficiencies in overseas partner due diligence processes and will help highlight new opportunities for UK companies to use their LEI when operating across borders and jurisdictions.”
GLEIF is now seeking to engage additional business registries around the world with the aim of leveraging the LEI as a central data connector to further enhance global corporate transparency and advance the fight against economic crime.
