TradeGo approved as qualified vLEI issuer, advancing secure digital trade identity - Trade Treasury Payments

GLEIF approval positions TradeGo at the centre of efforts to embed verifiable identity into digital trade infrastructure, from eBLs to payments.

TradeGo, the Singapore-based digital trade platform backed by major commodity houses, shipping firms, banks and technology providers, has been approved by the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) as a Qualified vLEI Issuer (QVI). The designation enables the platform to begin issuing cryptographically verifiable legal entity credentials, allowing participants in cross-border trade to anchor identity directly into blockchain-based documents and transactions.

This latest milestone brings TradeGo into the vLEI ecosystem as both a user and issuer of verifiable Legal Entity Identifiers, which are digital credentials designed to solve one of the more persistent problems in trade digitalisation: verifying who is on the other side of a transaction. GLEIF said the move would help reduce fragmentation and inefficiencies that continue to hinder trusted digital trade at scale.

“TradeGo’s approval as a QVI is a powerful endorsement of the role the vLEI can play in addressing the long-standing identity and compliance challenges that have constrained cross-border trade,” said Alexandre Kech, CEO of GLEIF. “By integrating the vLEI as a globally standardised, cryptographically verifiable organisational identifier into blockchain-enabled solutions, TradeGo is overcoming these barriers and demonstrating what the future of trusted digital trade looks like.”

The TradeGo platform supports digital workflows across commodity trading, shipping, and finance, with functionality spanning electronic bills of lading (eBLs), smart contracts, digital payments, and electronic bunkering. Embedding vLEI credentials into these systems means that each transaction can carry a tamper-proof organisational identity — one that is machine-readable, legally recognised, and globally interoperable.

TradeGo’s CEO, Mr Yu Yingjiao, said the approval reinforced the company’s long-term vision to enable trusted, seamless digital trade across borders. “By embedding vLEI credentials across our platform, we are creating a foundation for truly interoperable global trade, where one identity supports participation across ecosystems,” he said. “This milestone reinforces TradeGo’s mission to build a seamless and trusted digital trade environment. We welcome partners to join us on this journey.”

GLEIF’s announcement follows a series of TradeGo pilot deployments, where the integration of vLEI-backed credentials showed significant efficiency gains. Internal assessments during pre-qualification stages suggested that digital payment compliance costs could be reduced by as much as 90 percent, with manual operations cut by 80 percent and trade document processing improved by over 60 percent. While early, these figures point to the practical value of combining blockchain-based trade systems with legally verifiable digital identities, especially in sectors prone to high compliance burdens and counterparty risk.

The development is also well-timed. Governments and regulators are accelerating efforts to legitimise digital trade documentation, with legal frameworks such as Singapore’s Electronic Transactions Act, the UK’s Electronic Trade Documents Act, and UNCITRAL’s Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) all converging around standards that require robust digital identity attribution. TradeGo’s implementation of the vLEI directly supports compliance with these frameworks, helping to give electronic trade documents legal standing across jurisdictions.

Xu Jun, Vice Chair of the ICC Banking Commission Steering Committee, said that real-time verification of counterparties was becoming essential to reduce fraud risk and the growing cost of KYC in trade finance. “The ability to verify cross-border entities instantly is essential for reducing KYC costs and eliminating fraud risks in trade finance,” he said. “Integrating the vLEI across TradeGo’s ecosystem offers a credible, forward-looking solution for the industry.”

The Qualified vLEI Issuer designation also forms part of TradeGo’s broader roadmap, which includes developing a secure digital identity and transaction framework known as the Global Inter-entity Financial and Trading Society, or GIFTS. The initiative seeks to connect identity, contracts, compliance data, and trade finance workflows through a unified infrastructure layer.

GLEIF continues to encourage platforms, regulators, and financial institutions to explore how the vLEI can support more efficient, secure, and transparent trade. For TradeGo, full-scale credential issuance now marks the transition from pilot to production, and from digital platform to identity-bearing infrastructure.