# businessdataguide, Full Article Abstracts > Editorial intelligence for global company registry data. Practitioner-grade jurisdiction guides, CDD/UBO reference material, and supplier comparisons for compliance officers, KYC analysts, AML platform engineers, fund administrators, and in-house counsel. Operated by TEH KIM GUAN consultancy, Malaysia. This file concatenates expanded abstracts of the pillar guide, four educational reference articles, and the top five jurisdiction guides by buyer demand (Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Indonesia). Each section includes the article title, a 200 to 300 word abstract, and the canonical source URL. Use this file for retrieval-augmented generation, citation indexing, and AI assistant grounding. --- ## Global Business Due Diligence in 2026: A Compliance Team's Reference Guide How to verify any company anywhere. Registries by region, jurisdiction comparison, FATF and OECD framework, UBO disclosure, and the workflow compliance teams use in 2026. Verifying a business counterparty in 2026 involves navigating registries that range from instantly free (Singapore, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, United Kingdom) to account-gated and local-language only (India MCA21, Japan, Vietnam). The universal workflow has five steps: identify the legal entity, verify its status, map control through to ultimate beneficial owners, assess financial standing, and screen for sanctions and adverse media. FATF Recommendations 10 and 22 set the international baseline for customer due diligence obligations. A November 2022 European Court of Justice ruling restricted public access to EU UBO registers, while the United States Corporate Transparency Act has faced enforcement injunctions since early 2025. The registry layer is the foundation. Everything else is enrichment. Due diligence is not one thing. The term covers at least four distinct obligations depending on who is doing it and why. Customer Due Diligence is the baseline obligation imposed on regulated financial institutions under FATF Recommendation 10. Enhanced Due Diligence applies when standard CDD is insufficient: high-risk jurisdictions, politically exposed persons, complex ownership structures, or unusual transaction patterns. Know Your Business is the corporate equivalent of Know Your Customer, used widely in fintech, payments, and trade finance. Ongoing monitoring is the requirement to keep due diligence current. The pillar guide maps each obligation to the specific data points compliance teams need: registered legal name and number, jurisdiction of incorporation, current status, directors and appointment dates, beneficial owners above the relevant threshold, filed financial statements, sanctions and PEP screening results, adverse media, and any court or regulatory enforcement records. The pillar guide is organised around the five-step universal workflow. Step one identifies the legal entity using the company registration number as the unique key, never the trading name. Step two verifies status through the official registry filing (active, struck off, in liquidation). Step three traces ownership and control through to the natural-person UBO using the local UBO register where available and reconstructed from filings where the register is restricted. Step four assesses financial standing through filed accounts, credit bureau data, and trade payment history. Step five screens sanctions, PEP, and adverse media using the OFAC SDN, EU Consolidated, UK OFSI, UN Security Council, and equivalent national lists, plus PEP databases and adverse media indexes. The guide concludes with a regional registry map showing where each step is cheap, expensive, fast, or slow, and identifies the eight most common compliance failure modes including matching on name only, accepting unverified UBO declarations, and treating the file as a one-time event. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/global-business-due-diligence-guide --- ## AML Monitoring Best Practices in 2026 Ongoing AML monitoring under FATF Recommendation 10. Triggers, frequency, registry refresh, sanctions re-screening, transaction monitoring rule design, and where most programmes fail. Ongoing monitoring is not a separate obligation bolted onto customer due diligence. It is part of CDD itself, located within FATF Recommendation 10. Effective AML programmes run four distinct monitoring layers in parallel: transaction monitoring, sanctions list re-screening, customer file refresh, and registry or UBO change detection. The most common failure is treating the initial CDD file as a completed event rather than a living record. Everything downstream of that mistake compounds over time. The FATF Methodology specifies that institutions must keep records current, review them when triggers arise, and apply monitoring intensity proportional to risk. The records obligation in FATF Recommendation 11, with a five-year minimum retention, connects directly. An undocumented review effectively did not happen for supervisory purposes. Transaction monitoring watches the activity in the relationship after onboarding and detects patterns inconsistent with the customer's stated profile. Sanctions list re-screening applies current OFAC SDN, EU Consolidated, UK OFSI, and UN Security Council Consolidated lists to the customer population on a high-frequency cadence because list updates are unpredictable. Customer file refresh covers the non-transaction elements of the CDD file: registered company details, directorship, UBO declarations, and regulatory authorisation status. Adverse media surveillance monitors public news and enforcement databases for negative coverage involving the customer, its directors, or its beneficial owners. The four layers are not interchangeable. A programme that runs excellent transaction monitoring but never refreshes the customer file will miss the UBO who became a Politically Exposed Person after onboarding. Frequency must be risk-based, not calendar-based. The article walks through trigger-based refresh logic (sanctions hit, PEP designation, adverse media match, UBO change in source registry, change of address or directors, material transaction profile shift, regulator notification) and contrasts it with calendar refresh cycles (annual for low risk, semi-annual or quarterly for medium and high risk respectively). It documents the data sources for each monitoring layer, the supervisory expectations under FATF Mutual Evaluations, the most common deficiency findings cited in MERs (delayed sanctions screening cycle, no documented trigger framework, customer file refresh on calendar but not on registry change events, transaction monitoring rules tuned for false-positive volume rather than risk coverage), and a checklist of four programme tests (rule coverage, record currency, alert closure documentation, escalation pathway integrity) that compliance leaders can run quarterly to detect drift before it surfaces in supervisory inspections. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/aml-monitoring-best-practices-2026 --- ## Customer Due Diligence Checklist for Fund Administrators in 2026 A practical CDD workflow for fund administrators onboarding new vehicles, investors, and counterparties. Entity verification, UBO mapping, sanctions screening, and ongoing monitoring. FATF Recommendation 10 requires regulated entities to identify and verify customers, including the beneficial owners behind them, before or during onboarding. Fund administrators face a layered obligation. CDD applies both to the fund vehicle itself, as the administrator's customer, and to the investors subscribing to that fund. The four-step workflow is identify, verify, screen, and monitor. Fund-specific complexity comes from multi-layer SPV ownership structures, the regulator-recognised ability to accept delegated investor KYC from the fund manager in some circumstances, and the depositary attestation context under AIFMD Article 21, which audits the administrator's process as part of depositary oversight. Getting any one layer wrong creates file gaps that surface in regulatory inspections. A bank and a fund administrator both sit under FATF Recommendation 10, but the customer topology is different. A bank has one obvious customer, the account holder. A fund administrator has two overlapping customer populations. The fund vehicle itself is the administrator's direct customer and must be verified as a legal entity in good standing, with the fund manager's regulatory authorisations confirmed. The investors subscribing to the fund are, from an AML and CFT perspective, the customers of the fund. The administrator carries out investor CDD on behalf of, or at the direction of, the fund and its manager. In many AIFMD-regulated jurisdictions, the administrator performs investor onboarding operationally even when the fund manager retains regulatory responsibility. This dual-layer structure means a fund admin CDD programme must cover two distinct verification tracks that run in parallel and are documented separately. UCITS V Directive adds equivalent investor protection and oversight obligations for UCITS management companies and their administrators. The article walks through the fund vehicle CDD lifecycle (constitutional documents, regulator authorisation status, fund manager identification, depositary appointment letter, delegate registration evidence, ongoing review cadence) and the parallel investor CDD lifecycle (subscription document review, identity and address verification, source of funds and source of wealth narrative, sanctions and PEP screening, FATCA and CRS classification, accreditation evidence for restricted offerings). It addresses the SPV layering challenge directly: where investors are themselves SPVs, the administrator must traverse the chain to the natural person UBO above the local threshold, document the chain in the file, and refresh on each trigger. The piece closes with a regulator-inspection-ready checklist covering 32 file completeness items, the documentation standard for relying on a delegated KYC arrangement, and the depositary attestation evidence the administrator must be able to surface within 24 hours of a depositary information request. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/customer-due-diligence-checklist-fund-admins --- ## Enhanced Due Diligence in 2026: When Standard CDD Isn't Enough Enhanced due diligence (EDD) triggers, depth requirements, and workflow. PEPs, FATF grey list jurisdictions, complex ownership, source of funds, and Wolfsberg Group correspondent banking guidance. Enhanced due diligence is the escalated tier of AML and CFT verification that applies when standard customer due diligence cannot adequately manage the risk of a relationship. The international anchor is FATF Recommendation 19, which requires regulated institutions to apply intensified scrutiny to business relationships with persons from higher-risk countries. The five most common EDD triggers are politically exposed persons, FATF grey-list or black-list jurisdiction exposure, complex or opaque ownership structures, unusual or high-value transactions, and correspondent banking relationships. On top of standard CDD, EDD adds source of wealth verification, senior management approval before onboarding, more frequent monitoring (quarterly rather than annual), independent corroboration of UBO declarations, and deeper adverse media review. EDD applies when standard CDD steps are not enough. FATF Recommendation 19 requires financial institutions to apply enhanced measures proportionate to the risks when dealing with persons from countries that do not adequately apply the FATF Recommendations. FATF Recommendations 12 (PEPs) and 13 (correspondent banking) extend EDD requirements to those relationship types regardless of jurisdiction. EDD is not a fixed checklist. It is a documented judgement that steps taken were proportionate to the specific risk factors. A PEP from a stable, transparent jurisdiction warrants different depth than a foreign senior official from a grey-listed country introduced by a third party. Both trigger EDD; the file should reflect that difference. EU 5AMLD Article 18 requires obliged entities to apply EDD in situations that by their nature present a higher risk. The obligation extends to any high-risk situation the institution identifies, not only the listed examples. The article details each of the five primary EDD triggers with examples, the supplementary verification steps EDD adds on top of standard CDD (independent corroboration of UBO declarations, source of wealth narrative documentation, senior management approval before onboarding, accelerated monitoring frequency, deeper adverse media review across non-English language sources), and the documentation discipline that distinguishes a defensible EDD file from one that fails inspection. It explains the Wolfsberg Group correspondent banking due diligence questionnaire as the de facto industry baseline for correspondent relationships, the DDQ for fund managers, and the supervisory expectation that institutions can articulate why the chosen depth was proportionate to the risk. The piece also covers the practical exit ramp: when EDD evidence indicates that risk cannot be adequately managed, the obligation shifts from monitoring to relationship termination, with documented rationale and SAR filing where indicators warrant. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/enhanced-due-diligence-when-cdd-isnt-enough --- ## What is Ultimate Beneficial Ownership? UBO Explained for Compliance Teams in 2026 Ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a company. Thresholds, registers, FATF Recommendation 24, EU 5AMLD, and the practical workflow. An ultimate beneficial owner is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity, either through direct or indirect shareholding above a stated threshold or through the exercise of control by other means. The international baseline threshold is 25 percent, established in FATF Recommendation 24, though several jurisdictions set it lower. Three distinct obligations attach to UBO: identifying the person, verifying the identity, and keeping the record current. Failure at any of those three steps is the most common deficiency cited in FATF mutual evaluation reports. A registered shareholder is the legal holder of record, the name that appears in the company's share register or registry filing. A beneficial owner is the natural person who has the genuine economic interest in those shares or who exercises control over the entity. They may or may not be the same person. An ultimate beneficial owner is the natural person at the end of the ownership chain. The word "ultimate" requires traversal of the full chain, not just the first layer. FATF Recommendation 24 (2012, revised 2023) defines three concepts: ownership-based UBO (a natural person who directly or indirectly holds shares or voting rights above the relevant threshold, with 25 percent as the international reference point), control-based UBO (a person who exercises effective control by other means such as shareholder agreements or rights to appoint directors), and senior management UBO as a fallback when no natural person can be identified through ownership or control. The article maps register access by jurisdiction and explains how the November 2022 European Court of Justice ruling and the suspended United States Corporate Transparency Act enforcement reshaped UBO data availability. The piece walks through the three UBO obligations (identify, verify, keep current) with the documentation expected at each step and the most common failure modes. It covers threshold variations: 25 percent at the FATF baseline and in most EU jurisdictions, 10 percent in some sectoral regimes (US securities, certain trust contexts), and bespoke control-based tests under PSC and equivalent regimes. It addresses register access reality by jurisdiction: free public PSC data in the United Kingdom, restricted (legitimate-interest) access in EU Member States after the November 2022 ECJ ruling, US Beneficial Ownership Information register suspended by injunction since early 2025, and the patchwork of central registers, partial registers, and absent registers across the rest of the world. The article closes with the practical workflow compliance teams use when the register is restricted or absent: source documents (memorandum and articles, share certificates, shareholders agreements), corroboration techniques (signed UBO declaration, supporting evidence pack), and the file standard that survives supervisory review. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/what-is-ultimate-beneficial-ownership --- ## Singapore Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify a Singapore Business Complete guide to searching Singapore's ACRA Bizfile+ registry. Costs, API access, English interface, account requirements, and what foreign compliance buyers need to know. Singapore's official business registry is ACRA Bizfile+, operated by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority. Foreign buyers can search by company name or UEN with no Singaporean account required, paying SGD 5.50 to 16.50 (approximately USD 4.10 to 12.30) per document download. The interface is fully English, the data is current to the day of filing, and a developer API is available for bulk compliance workflows. The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority maintains Singapore's central company registry under the Companies Act (Cap. 50). The public search portal is Bizfile+, accessible at bizfile.gov.sg. Bizfile+ replaced the original Bizfile portal in 2016 and has been progressively expanded to cover companies, sole proprietorships, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, and public accounting entities. ACRA operates under the Ministry of Finance and has statutory authority over company incorporation, filing obligations, and registry data publication. All Singapore-incorporated entities are assigned a Unique Entity Number at registration, which serves as the primary identifier across government systems. The registry holds records dating to the early 1990s for most entity types. Historical filing documents are available as downloadable PDFs for the majority of filings. Bizfile+ supports searches by company name, UEN, NRIC or FIN for sole proprietorships, director or officer name, and shareholder name. Data available per entity profile includes registered name, UEN, entity type, registered address, date of incorporation, status, principal activity (SSIC code), paid-up capital, list of officers, and shareholding structure for companies with 20 or fewer shareholders. Data freshness is tied to the filing event: directors changes, address updates, and capital alterations appear within 1 to 2 business days of ACRA processing the lodgment. Singapore's developer API at acra.gov.sg/api gives compliance teams programmatic access to the same data with a published REST contract, making Bizfile+ unusually friendly for AML platform integration compared with regional peers. The article maps each document type to its purpose (business profile for status verification, electronic certificate of incorporation for counterparty due diligence packs, annual return for board and shareholder snapshots, lodgment index for filing audit trail), pricing in both SGD and USD, and the typical use case from compliance buyers. It also covers the boundary between ACRA Bizfile+ data and adjacent sources: Singapore does not maintain a public UBO register, so beneficial ownership is established from the company's own register of registrable controllers required under the Companies Act, accessed through the entity rather than the regulator. The piece concludes with practitioner workflow notes on payment options for foreign buyers (PayNow domestic only, credit card universal), turnaround expectations, and the most common failure modes when relying on third-party Singapore data products that resell Bizfile+ extracts. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/jurisdictions/singapore-company-search-guide --- ## Malaysia Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify a Malaysia Business Search Malaysia's SSM MyData registry for company profiles, director records, and incorporation documents. Costs MYR 5 to 25 (approximately USD 1.10 to 5.60), English UI, no public API. Malaysia's official business registry is SSM MyData, operated by the Companies Commission Malaysia (Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia). Foreign buyers can register with a passport and purchase company profile documents for MYR 5 to 25 (approximately USD 1.10 to 5.60). The interface is fully in English, there is no public API, and all document downloads are instant once payment clears. The Companies Commission Malaysia maintains the central registry for all companies and businesses incorporated or registered in Malaysia. SSM operates under the Companies Act 2016, which replaced the Companies Act 1965, and the Registration of Businesses Act 1956 for business names and sole proprietors. The public search and document portal is SSM MyData at mydata.ssm.com.my. SSM covers Sendirian Berhad (Sdn Bhd, the private limited company), Berhad (Bhd, the public company), limited liability partnerships (Perkongsian Liabiliti Terhad), sole proprietors registered under a business name, and branch offices of foreign companies registered in Malaysia. Foreign company registrations are held on the same registry. SSM also maintains the central register of charges (security interests) against company assets. Records in SSM MyData date back to the early 1990s for most entity types. Digitization of older paper records is ongoing; pre-1990 filings may require a counter visit at an SSM branch office. The captcha-gated registration flow requires foreign buyers to provide a passport scan during account creation. Once account approval clears (typically same business day), document purchases are instant. Compliance buyers commonly pair SSM MyData with the credit bureau layer (CTOS, RAM Credit Information) when full financial standing is required, since SSM filings are limited to the company law obligations and do not include trade payment data. The article maps each SSM document type (Company Profile, Annual Return, Audited Financial Statements, Particulars of Charge, Form 9 Certificate of Incorporation) to its compliance use case, with current pricing in MYR and USD. It also covers Malaysia's beneficial ownership reporting regime under the Beneficial Ownership Reporting Framework (effective from 2020), which requires companies to maintain a register of beneficial owners and lodge BO information with SSM. Public access to BO data is restricted to specified categories (law enforcement, regulators, reporting institutions under the AMLATFPUAA 2001), so foreign compliance buyers typically obtain BO information from the company directly during onboarding rather than from SSM directly. The piece closes with the practical comparison between Malaysia's three primary data layers (SSM official registry, CTOS and RAM credit bureaus, court e-filing portal e-Filing for litigation history), payment method options for foreign buyers including FPX domestic limitations, and the typical sequencing compliance teams use to assemble a complete Malaysia file. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/jurisdictions/malaysia-company-search-guide --- ## Hong Kong Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify a Hong Kong Business Search Hong Kong's Companies Registry via ICRIS for company profiles and filing history. Costs HKD 22 to 340 (approximately USD 2.80 to 43.60), English UI, no general public API. Hong Kong's official business registry is the Companies Registry, operated by the Companies Registry of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The public search system is the Integrated Companies Registry Information System (ICRIS), with the Cyber Search Centre as the online portal. Foreign buyers can register with an email address and purchase records for HKD 22 to 340 (approximately USD 2.80 to 43.60). The interface is fully in English and Chinese, and there is no general public API. The Companies Registry of the HKSAR is the statutory body responsible for incorporating and registering companies, maintaining the public register, and enforcing the Companies Ordinance (Cap. 622). The primary online system for document search and retrieval is ICRIS, accessible via the Cyber Search Centre at icris.cr.gov.hk. ICRIS covers all companies incorporated in Hong Kong under the Companies Ordinance, registered non-Hong Kong companies (branch offices), limited partnerships, and business name registrations under the Business Registration Ordinance (Cap. 310). The Business Registration Office, a separate but related government body, handles the Business Registration Certificate which is distinct from the company incorporation record. Records in ICRIS cover companies incorporated from the 1980s onward in digital form. Older records may require a physical search at the Companies Registry counter in Queensway. The registry holds documents including articles of association, annual returns, change of director filings, mortgage and charge registrations, and winding-up orders. Compliance buyers should note that the Companies Registry record and the Business Registration Office certificate are issued by different agencies and serve different purposes. Both are commonly required by counterparties or banks during onboarding. Pricing varies sharply by document type, with basic company particulars at the low end and certified incorporation documents at the upper end of the band. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/jurisdictions/hong-kong-company-search-guide --- ## UK Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify a UK Business Search the UK Companies House register for free company profiles, filing history, and PSC (UBO) data. Free for most records, REST API available at no cost, instant access. The United Kingdom's official business registry is Companies House, a UK Government executive agency. Most company records, filing history, and person of significant control (PSC) data are free to search and download with no account required. The registry offers a public REST API at no cost. Certified copies cost up to GBP 15 (approximately USD 19). The interface is fully in English. Companies House is the executive agency of the UK Government responsible for incorporating companies and maintaining the public register under the Companies Act 2006. The primary public search portal is the Find and Update Company Information service at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk. Companies House operates from Cardiff, Wales, and registers entities for England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own Companies House offices but share the same central register. The legal basis is the Companies Act 2006, as amended by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. The 2023 Act introduced a suite of reforms: identity verification for directors, expanded powers for Companies House to query and reject suspicious filings, and changes to the Register of Overseas Entities. The PSC register, mandated since 2016, captures persons of significant control above the 25 percent threshold and is a primary UBO data source for UK entities. Companies House is the gold standard for free public registry access in the G20: no fees for the basic profile, no account requirement for the public-facing search, and a documented REST API at developer.company-information.service.gov.uk that compliance teams can integrate into onboarding pipelines without licensing negotiation. Bulk data products (full snapshots, monthly updates) are also free. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/jurisdictions/uk-company-search-guide --- ## Indonesia Company Search Guide 2026: How to Verify an Indonesia Business Search Indonesia's AHU Online registry for company profiles and legal status. Costs IDR 50,000 to 500,000 (approximately USD 3.10 to 31.20), partial English UI, no public API. Indonesia's official business registry for companies is AHU Online, operated by the Directorate General of General Legal Administration (Ditjen AHU) under the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. The portal is primarily in Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) with partial English. Foreign buyers can register and purchase Daftar Profile (company profile) documents for IDR 50,000 to 500,000 (approximately USD 3.10 to 31.20). There is no public API. For business licensing, the separate OSS system is also relevant. Indonesia's central company registry is maintained by the Direktorat Jenderal Administrasi Hukum Umum, the Directorate General of General Legal Administration, which sits within the Kementerian Hukum dan HAM (Ministry of Law and Human Rights, abbreviated MoLHR or Kemenkumham). The public portal is AHU Online at ahu.go.id. AHU Online handles the registration and ongoing filing obligations for Perseroan Terbatas (PT, the limited liability company), PT Penanaman Modal Asing (PT PMA, the foreign investment company), PT Penanaman Modal Dalam Negeri (PT PMDN, the domestic investment company), foundations (Yayasan), associations (Perkumpulan), and certain cooperatives. The legal basis is Company Law No. 40 of 2007 and its subsequent amendments. For business licensing, including sector-specific permits and the Nomor Induk Berusaha (NIB, the Business Identification Number), the separate OSS (Online Single Submission) system at oss.go.id is also relevant. The NIB is issued by OSS and serves as the primary business identifier across government licensing systems. The company registration number from AHU and the NIB from OSS are separate identifiers that compliance buyers may encounter. Foreign compliance buyers should plan for translation overhead. Most filed documents are in Bahasa Indonesia and the registry's English UI elements are limited to navigation chrome rather than document content. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/blog/jurisdictions/indonesia-company-search-guide --- ## Supplier tag pages The Suppliers Directory has 16 category-filtered views, one per compliance function, each listing global and regional vendors: - /suppliers/tag/aml-screening - /suppliers/tag/kyc-platform - /suppliers/tag/ubo-beneficial-ownership - /suppliers/tag/sanctions-screening - /suppliers/tag/pep-screening - /suppliers/tag/adverse-media - /suppliers/tag/company-registry-data - /suppliers/tag/credit-bureau - /suppliers/tag/data-aggregator - /suppliers/tag/financial-statements - /suppliers/tag/identity-verification - /suppliers/tag/litigation-data - /suppliers/tag/litigation-research - /suppliers/tag/corporate-services - /suppliers/tag/concierge-fulfillment - /suppliers/tag/other Each tag page groups suppliers into global vendors (covering multiple jurisdictions) and regional vendors, with category cross-links to related functions. Tag pages share the same editorial neutrality as the main Suppliers Directory. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/suppliers/tag/aml-screening --- ## Tools ### Country Comparison Engine Free tool for comparing registry access conditions across up to 5 jurisdictions simultaneously. Covers all 209 jurisdictions in the businessdataguide collection. For each selected jurisdiction the tool displays the registry name, English UI availability, account requirements, local-ID requirements, CAPTCHA or 2FA friction, minimum and maximum document cost in USD, API availability, and typical turnaround time. Comparisons are bookmarkable via URL state and exportable as Markdown for inclusion in compliance workflow documentation. The tool uses data from the same jurisdiction collection that powers the per-jurisdiction guide pages. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/tools/compare-countries --- ### Evidence Pack Generator Free tool that generates a structured KYB evidence checklist for any of the 209 covered jurisdictions. Given a jurisdiction selection, the generator outputs the specific documents needed for that country (incorporation certificate, registry profile, UBO declaration, financial statements, sanctions screen), the official source for each document, the access method (free public, account-gated, paid, no public access), and a step-by-step verification sequence. Output is rendered in Markdown and can be downloaded or copied directly into compliance onboarding templates. Intended for compliance officers, KYC analysts, and legal teams building counterparty onboarding packs. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/tools/evidence-pack-generator --- ### Per-country KYB checklist downloads Markdown-format KYB workflow checklists for all 209 covered jurisdictions, available as static file downloads at /tools/checklist/{country-slug}.md. Each checklist lists the registry name, access method, typical cost range, and a numbered verification sequence for that country. Checklists are designed for direct ingestion by AI assistants, RAG pipelines, and compliance workflow tools. Example: https://www.businessdataguide.com/tools/checklist/malaysia.md Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/tools --- ## Developer resources ### Registry API Directory Index page listing official company registry APIs with authentication model, rate limits, and status badge for each jurisdiction. For developers building KYC, AML, and compliance data pipelines. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory --- ### UK Companies House REST API — Endpoint, Auth, Rate Limits Free REST API from the UK Government's Companies House. API key authentication via HTTP Basic Auth, 600 requests per 5-minute window. Endpoints cover company profiles, officer appointments, persons of significant control (PSC/UBO data), filing history, charges, and insolvency records. JSON responses. No OAuth required for read-only access. Financial statements are served as PDFs via a separate document endpoint, not as structured JSON. Dissolved company data is present but some older document retrievals return 410 Gone. Rate limit enforcement uses 429 with Retry-After header; no X-RateLimit-Remaining headers are provided. For bulk workloads, use the Companies House monthly data product rather than the REST API. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory/uk-registry-api --- ### Greece GEMI Public Business Portal API — Endpoint, Auth, Rate Limits The GEMI registry at publicity.businessportal.gr has an undocumented REST API (`/api/`) that powers the web portal. No authentication required for basic queries. Covers Greek company profiles, directors and board members, official gazette publication references, and branches. All field names are in Greek transliteration. Financial statements are PDF-only via gazette links. No structured UBO data. Rate limiting is IP-level and undocumented; observed tolerance is roughly 10-15 requests per minute. Scheduled maintenance on Saturday nights (EET/EEST). Name search returns at most 20 results. For production pipelines, commercial aggregators that normalise GEMI data into English JSON are the practical choice. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory/greece-registry-api --- ### Japan NTA Corporate Number Web API — Endpoint, Auth, Rate Limits The National Tax Agency's Corporate Number Web API (houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp) covers 6.8 million Japanese legal entities. API key via NTA registration (free, 1-3 business day turnaround, Japanese-language form). Endpoints: lookup by corporate number, name search, daily change feed, and bulk CSV download. All output is in Japanese script; no Romanised field names. Returns name, address, entity type, status, and incorporation date only. Directors, shareholders, and financial statements are not available. For bulk workloads use the monthly CSV download or the daily diff feed rather than polling individual corporate numbers. Maximum 10 corporate numbers per request on the lookup endpoint. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory/japan-registry-api --- ### Spain BORME and Mercantile Registry API — Endpoint, Auth, Rate Limits Spain has no unified public REST API for company data. The closest official option is the data.boe.es BORME API, which provides structured JSON/XML access to official gazette announcements: incorporations, officer appointments, capital changes, and dissolutions. No authentication required. Act detail fields are Spanish free-text, not structured. No address, shareholder, or financial statement data as JSON. 52 provincial Mercantile Registries each maintain their own records; the BORME API spans all of them at the gazette-publication level only. For production use requiring structured directors, financials, or addresses, commercial aggregators (Informa, AXESOR, Bureau van Dijk) handle the provincial complexity. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory/spain-registry-api --- ### Singapore ACRA BizFile+ / Myinfo Business API — Endpoint, Auth, Rate Limits Singapore's ACRA data is available to developers via the Myinfo Business API, part of GovTech's national digital identity infrastructure. Authentication is OAuth 2.0 via Corppass (Singapore's business identity provider). This is a consent-based API: the business entity must authorise data sharing through a Singpass/Corppass login screen. Not suitable for unilateral third-party lookup without consent. Covers UEN, entity name, status, type, registered address, officers, shareholders, paid-up capital, and SSIC business activity codes. For third-party KYC lookup without consent, BizFile+ paid reports (SGD 5.50 basic, SGD 11 full) are the alternative. Foreign developers without a Singapore UEN must apply through a licensed Singapore corporate service provider. Source: https://www.businessdataguide.com/api-directory/singapore-registry-api --- ## Citation guidance Articles carry publication dates and last-verified dates. Registry pricing is sourced from official government registry pages and may change. Verify against the official registry URL cited in each article before relying on any pricing figure. businessdataguide is an editorial publication of TEH KIM GUAN consultancy (Malaysia) and operates as a buyer's editor, not as a registry, supplier, or competitor to commercial data products. Information only, no services.