In a recent article1 in Regulation Asia, Clare Rowley of GLEIF (the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation), sets out how comprehensive identification of legal entities and their behaviours is the key to fighting modern and future financial crime.
In fact, GLIEF’s very purpose is to provide “open, standardized and high-quality legal entity reference data. By doing so, GLEIF enables people and businesses to make smarter, less costly and more reliable decisions about who to do business with”.
Greater transparency, more trust
The model of globally accepted identifiers (Legal Entity Identifiers – LEI) helps reduce the risk from money laundering and other financial crimes. For example, when a corporate payment message carries an LEI that organisation can immediately be recognised and trusted across borders and in different jurisdictions.
It seems clear that using LEI is a tremendous opportunity. But it’s still only part of a journey.
Total protection?
While an individual human being is, strictly, a legal entity, LEI are designed primarily for business use. Their adoption has spread rapidly, but individual people do not automatically need one to make a financial transaction.
This leaves a vulnerability: criminals are just as likely to launder money or move drugs proceeds individually as they are through a business.
Add to this the silo effect caused by concerns around data protection, and it’s clear that the LEI are not a complete solution.
Enter the perfect partner: the ‘Global Person’
At Essiell Compli, and with our Compli suite of services, we have developed and built upon the concept of the Global Person to strengthen protection against financial crime for businesses and individuals.
For us, the Global Person is a customer profile that captures a complete picture of the individual from multiple databases. It’s further boosted by always-on transaction monitoring.
As well as providing essential information for screening, ID, and verification, our Global Person approach supports an identifier service that can spot stolen or re-sold information, thus preventing fraudulent transactions. When Compli is used by partner organisations we can likewise get rid of silo barriers – so up to date information flows quickly to the point of enquiry.
Just as LEI helps meet the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Compli ensures transparency, the sharing of data in standardized forms and strengthening of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF).
An holistic approach to defeating financial crime
LEI and the Global Person are more than fancy tools used in the abstract or just by blue-chip corporations. Together they can make a significant positive impact in strengthening AML, CTF and financial crime generally.
Benefits can be felt in very normal places – in banks and credit unions providing travel money, by money remittance services, and by gambling platform and casinos.
LEI and Essiell Compli’s Global Person are complementary concepts with concrete real-world benefits in real time. If you want protection from financial crime, the combination could be a revelation.
By Bjorn Larsson, CEO at Essiell Ltd, and Chairman of Essiell Compli.
