Open Standards for Trust: How Interoperability Drives Adoption in Digital Finance

In this episode of Trust Talks, host Alexandre Kech (CEO, GLEIF) speaks with Pelle Brændgaard (Co-Founder & CEO, Notabene) about why open standards consistently outperform closed networks when scale, adoption, and trust matter most. They explore how organizational identifiers such as the LEI and vLEI can enable faster, more reliable counterparty verification and help shift compliance from reactive checks to pre-transaction decision-making under frameworks such as FATF Recommendation 16 (the Travel Rule).The conversation also covers how open messaging and verification layers can reduce friction in cross-border and digital-asset payments, and how products like Notabene Flow aim to translate interoperability into real operational workflows for institutions and businesses.Key themesWhy open-loop networks win (payments and the internet as reference cases) LEI/vLEI as practical trust anchors for businesses in multi-network ecosystems Pre-transaction verification as the operating model for instant settlement Interoperability as a measurable adoption lever, not a “nice-to-have.”