How does LPID and vLEI work together? Or are they competing?

Excellent and timely question — and one that many in the eIDAS / Trust over IP / GLEIF / MyData / Findynet circles are quietly wrestling with right now.

Let’s strip the jargon down and look at it as infrastructure pieces.

🧩 What they each are

LPID = Legal Entity Identifier with Power-to-Act & Identity Proofing — in the EUDI / EUBW context.
It’s a verifiable credential representing a Legal Person’s ID, typically issued under eIDAS2 by a qualified or trusted issuer (like a national business register or EUBW-connected authority).
It’s meant to live inside an organisation wallet (EUBW) and be usable by its representatives when they sign, delegate, or authorise on behalf of the company.

In short: LPID = “Company credential inside the EU Trust Framework.”

vLEI = verifiable Legal Entity Identifier — developed by GLEIF, built on the LEI system from the financial sector (originally under FSB/Basel mandate post-2008).
vLEI is a set of three VCs anchored in a global, ISO-standard governance framework:

1. Legal Entity vLEI (the organisation itself)

2. Legal Entity Official Organisation Role Credential (vLEI EOR)

3. Legal Entity Authorised Representative Credential (vLEI EAR)

In short: vLEI = “Globally governed verifiable credentials for legal entities and their reps.”

⚙️ How they work together (or could)

They should not compete.
They’re different layers of the same emerging trust stack.

The ideal setup:

• The LPID issuer (e.g. a national business register) could issue a LPID that includes or references the vLEI identifier (LEI code).

• The vLEI then serves as a globally resolvable identifier and credential for recognition outside the EU’s eIDAS sphere.

• The EUBW (organisational wallet) can carry both, aligning EU legal validity with global interoperability.

🧠 Think of it like this

• vLEI = global trust anchor (ISO standard, machine-readable, cross-jurisdictional)

• LPID = EU legal trust anchor (eIDAS2-compliant, linked to national registers, carries liability and legal effect)

If integrated smartly:

LPID = “who the company is under EU law”
vLEI = “how the world recognises it in cross-border machine-to-machine interactions.”

🪜 What’s likely to happen

• EUBWs will support both schemas (LPID + vLEI).

• GLEIF and EU pilots are already discussing convergence — e.g., using vLEI’s KERI/ACDC models as technical templates for LIPID and PoA credentials.

• In the long run, expect harmonisation:
  vLEI providing the identifier framework,
  LPID providing EU legal semantics and qualified status.

🧭 TL;DR

They’re not competitors — they’re complementary building blocks.

• vLEI gives you global machine-readable identity.

• LPID gives you EU-legally valid identity and representation.

• Together in an EUBW, they form the organisational side of the EU Trust Infrastructure — powering AI-agents, data-space access, and cross-border business automation.