The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) has named the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) as the winner of its Global vLEI Hackathon in the ‘Digital Asset and Financial Infrastructures’ category. Clearstream, the international central securities depository and post-trade services provider, was announced as the runner-up.
The hackathon, which received 110 submissions worldwide, challenged innovators to develop real-world solutions using the verifiable Legal Entity Identifier (vLEI), a form of digital organisational identity. The winning solutions from LSEG and Clearstream both demonstrate how the vLEI can enhance transparency, automate compliance, and improve operational efficiency in digital asset markets and financial infrastructures.
The winners were announced at an international forum on Digital Organizational Identity, hosted by Swift and Chainlink during Chainlink’s SmartCon event in New York City.
LSEG’s winning solution for automated compliance
LSEG’s winning solution presented a secure and automated framework for digital transactions. The project integrated credential issuance, smart contract logic, liquidity verification, and regulatory reporting into a single system.
By using the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) as the global standard for entity identification and the vLEI for cryptographic verifiability, LSEG’s solution enables automated compliance, delegated authority, and real-time auditability. GLEIF highlighted this as foundational to building trust, transparency, and operational efficiency in the LSEG ecosystem.
Pritha Sharma, director of symbology at LSEG, said: “Participating in the GLEIF Global vLEI Hackathon was a valuable opportunity to engage with emerging innovations in digital identity and trust frameworks. The event fostered collaboration among diverse teams focused on developing practical applications for verifiable legal entity identifiers (vLEIs). We gained deeper insights into the technical and organizational potential of vLEIs to enhance transparency and interoperability across digital ecosystems.”
Clearstream’s solution for digitised trust
Clearstream was named the category runner-up for its solution that utilises the vLEI as the login standard for its ClearstreamXact post-trading services portal. This proof of concept demonstrated how Clearstream’s global base of 1,500 institutional clients could benefit from instant identity verification, streamlined onboarding, and digitised trust in their transactions.
Martin Sandala, head of data channel positioning at Clearstream, commented: “The ClearstreamXact web portal already provides a one-stop securities and funds services solution to over 50,000 users around the world. If the vLEI can become the login standard in the way our solution demonstrates, it could redefine how the entire industry authenticates and connects.”
A glimpse into the future of digital finance
The vLEI is the cryptographically secure digital counterpart of the conventional LEI. It is a digital credential that links an organisation’s identity with a natural person and their role within it, allowing for automated, peer-to-peer verification without intermediaries.
Alexandre Kech, chief executive officer of GLEIF, said: “The extent to which the vLEI will transform digital financial infrastructures is on full display in the LSEG and Clearstream vLEI solutions. By digitizing slow, fragmented, manual processes, and building automated, organizational trust into asset transaction flows, tremendous gains in operational efficiency, compliance, and user experience are possible, while simultaneously enhancing security. This is a glimpse of a future that is right around the corner and can’t come soon enough.”
The hackathon, which launched in July, is supported by numerous organisations, including Swift, Chainlink, and the Cardano Foundation. Winners for the hackathon’s other categories are set to be unveiled in Hong Kong on 7 November and in Frankfurt on 2 December.
