Business registry data includes the company name and address, date of incorporation, previous names if any, alternate names if any, controlling or parent company if applicable, and key financial information.
Most of the data comes from government registries. Government regulations dictate that companies must publish their business and financial information in the public domain.
Typically, business registry attributes include business ID numbers, the type of business operations, public or private type of companies, and date of registration or incorporation. They also include contact information, acquisition history if any, number of employees, rate of employee turnover, and most recent statutory filings. The company's active status and any change in status are part of the attributes. Other data held by the company, such as trademarks, is also available.
Companies must update any change in their information, especially financial status changes, to avoid any fines from the government. They also need to ensure that their contact information is updated regularly for continued customer engagement.
Most government bodies and inter-governmental agencies also collect and present good-quality and up-to-date information about companies.
To test the quality of the data:
Besides ensuring that the data is trusted and up-to-date, you must confirm that it is relevant to your requirements. For example, B2B marketers need slightly different company information than credit lenders.
You can also check with your vendor if their data is enriched with relevant data such as market data.
Typically, small and medium-sized businesses use this data for due diligence, compliance audits, and for KYC (know your customer). They also use it to power analytics and enrich other B2B data. For example, B2B lenders can improve their risk analysis by enriching business registry data with credit rating data of the business owners.
Business registry data helps with investment and risk assessment for critical decisions. Fraud and financial crime investigators leverage this type of data to help them flag fraudulent activity.
Companies, media publications, non-profit organizations, government bodies, and inter-governmental agencies use business registry data for analysis of the business population and its demographics.
You can use this data to categorize prospective client companies based on industry, financial status, or other criteria relevant to your specific use case. Analyzing and comparing companies based on the registry information can help you make more informed decisions.
Business registry data is used for KYC and risk analysis. The main challenge is ensuring the data is up-to-date. As this data is used for a variety of objectives, you also need to ascertain that it is relevant to your requirements.
Some of the common challenges that arise when buying business registry data include source credibility, compliance, and data timeliness.
Thorough research and evaluation of business registry data vendors will help you overcome these challenges and choose the right ones.
You can find a variety of examples of B2B and company data in the Explorium Data Gallery
Sign-up for Explorium’s 14 day free-trial to access the data available on the platform.
The most common use cases for business registry data are KYC and risk analysis. Some key use cases are listed below.
You can use business registry data to power a wide variety of machine learning use cases. Consider lead scoring, field sales optimization, and small business loans default risk.
Explore all the use cases listed on our site and contact us for your specific requirements.
Industries that use business registry data include retail, consumer goods, eCommerce, financial services, insurance, hi-tech, and manufacturing.
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