LEI Worldwide has been listed as a partner of IDFC FIRST Bank, one of India’s leading digital-first financial institutions, to support the issuance and management of Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) for the bank’s clients and the wider Indian market. The collaboration forms part of IDFC FIRST’s Beyond Banking initiative, a platform designed to offer added-value compliance and digital infrastructure services to its commercial customers.

This partnership reflects a growing demand for regulatory-ready entity identification solutions in India, as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other regulators continue to expand LEI requirements across payment systems, OTC derivatives, large corporate borrowers, and cross-border transactions.

IDFC FIRST Bank

IDFC FIRST Bank was formed through the merger of IDFC Bank and Capital First and is known for its technology-led approach to retail and corporate banking. The bank’s Beyond Banking platform allows corporate clients to access a range of compliance, reporting, and technology tools directly through their banking interface — including now, LEI registration and renewal powered by LEI Worldwide.

LEI growth in India

India is one of the most progressive jurisdictions globally in mandating the use of the LEI. The Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) have all issued mandates requiring legal entities to obtain LEIs for financial transactions. The requirement applies across:

• Borrowers with aggregate exposure over ₹5 crore

• Participants in OTC derivative and forex markets

• Companies engaging in cross-border transactions or large value payments

• Insurance companies and pension funds

The Role of LEI Worldwide

LEI Worldwide is a global LEI Registration Agent, working with financial institutions, funds, law firms, and corporates across more than 190 jurisdictions. Its proprietary RAMP platform allows for efficient LEI lifecycle management, enabling onboarding, renewals, and compliance tracking at scale.

As part of this partnership, LEI Worldwide will integrate with IDFC FIRST’s infrastructure to offer:

• Streamlined LEI onboarding via Beyond Banking

• Renewal reminders and compliance alerts

• Bulk registration for corporate clients

• Regulatory insights and adoption analytics

“India is one of the fastest growing LEI markets globally, and we’re proud to support IDFC FIRST Bank in delivering streamlined LEI access to its corporate clients. This is a natural fit between innovation-driven banking and our global LEI infrastructure,” said Darragh Hayes, CEO of LEI Worldwide.

Strengthening Compliance Infrastructure

The integration between LEI Worldwide and IDFC FIRST Bank supports India's national strategy for improved entity transparency, reduced fraud risk, and enhanced interoperability between financial networks. It aligns with Indian businesses are well-positioned to meet both domestic and international regulatory obligations.

This also made it difficult for banks and other institutions to onboard new clients as KYC practices were relying on old and unconsolidated data.

​Registry information can be hard to access and needed to be collected into a single database. Lacking a reliable, trustworthy identifier it could become laborious and costly to onboard new clients and confirm identity (it is now estimated in research conducted by McKinsey that the LEI could save banks up to 2-4 billion Dollars annually in KYC processes).

History of the LEI: Following the 2008 market crash, issue with transparency in the markets caused a litany of issues with regard to identifying counter parties in transactions. When the stock market crashed, thousands of funds and trusts were unidentifiable and the fall resulted caused mass confusion. The lack of transparency put financial institutions and banks in a vulnerable position.

This was addressed at the G20 Summit of June 2011, who created the concept of the LEI. The idea was to create a digital database, of all legal entities which was easily accessible, reliable and up to date.

What is an LEI number used for? LEI Codes are simply used to identify legal entities on a global scale. This allows for great transparency in financial markets, standardisation, and greater risk control.​

According to LEI ROC the LEI no. was conceived to be used by the private sector to support improved risk management, increased operational efficiency, more accurate calculation of exposures, and other needs.

​One centralised source of information, that contains vast amounts of attainable, high quality data.

If you would like to find a more detailed explanation of the Legal Entity Identifier System, you can read our recent post What is an LEI number?