There is no single answer to the question: What is an NPE? Through our interviews and research, multiple definitions were used. This is due to different industries using the same terminology to describe different aspects of NPEs.NPEs have two legacy definitions: one as a legal person (corporate entity) and another as a system process.

A new definition of NPE comes from the “Internet of Things” (IoT), where smart things with internet communication abilities are an expanding data universe. For the purposes of this research, we focused on corporate and IoT NPEs in the context of banking and finance.

NPEs and Humans

NPEs possess a variety of relationships to people. People create legal entities and act on behalf of the new legal entity. IoT objects have relationships with humans, collecting and sharing data, while a human or company owns the object.

Registries make corporations

Registries and the identifiers issued by registries play a key role
in knowing and tracking who owns things. Corporations become corporations once they are registered in public government registries.

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