Business Registry Verification

Overview

The Business Registry Verification (BRV) is used in KYB to verify the existence of a business within an authoritative or government data source. Customers use the BRV to:

Validate and verify business information

A Business Registry Verification checks that business information an end-user provides—such as name, business address, and business registration number—matches a record in a given country’s business registry(s). The provided information must match a registry’s record in order to pass the verification.

Search against global business registries with customizable matching logic

The Business Registry Verification has access to business registries across 100+ countries. For details about coverage and what access you have, please reach out to your Persona account team.

Set a foundation for global KYB

Business Registry Verification is one of the many Verification types that Persona offers for KYB. Business Registry Verification is typically done as the initial verification in global KYB before additional enrichment via reports like the Business Watchlist or Business Lookup Report are run.

How the Business Registry Verification works

At a high-level, the Business Registry Verification works as follows:

1. Submission of information: End-users submit the business name, registration number, and business address for verification. While these attributes can be configured to be optional, providing more information allows Persona to expand our search capabilities. We recommend that all fields be required to improve match rates.

2. Match against identity records via Match Groups: Persona then searches the normalized information against global business registries using match groups.

   a. Each national registry has its own characteristics that need to be flexibly accounted for (e.g. number formats, languages, address formats, etc.). As a result, the Business Registry Verification has default Match Groups for each supported country for accurate fuzzy matching. To adjust your Match Groups, please reach out to your Persona account team.

3. Return verification result: Persona returns a pass or fail result, based on if the minimum match group requirements (“identity comparison check”) or other checks were met. As long as one of the applicable match groups is satisfied, the BRV’s identity comparison check will move into a passed state.

   a. Note that there are other dimensions of the BRV that can fail even if the match group passes. For example, if the Active Business Detection check is required, and the business is currently inactive, then the BRV will fail that check but may fully match on all provided fields.

Understanding Business Registry Numbers

One attribute that the BRV verifies is a Business Registry Number. These are typically the number granted by a given country’s business registry at the time of registration and incorporation.

Each country’s business registration number format is different. For example, In the US, businesses use a 9 digit Employer Identification Number (EIN). In the UK, businesses have a 8 character code called Company Registry Number (CRN), and in China, an 18 character Unified Social Credit Code (USCC) is used.

In some countries like the United States, a Business Registry Number may be the same as a business’s Tax Identification Number, but in other countries, these are distinct numbers. To verify a business’s TIN in some countries, you may need to use the TIN verification (US) or the VAT verification (EU).

Some common Business Registration Numbers are provided below:

Default match groups within the Business Registry Verification

Because each country has its own nuances for business number and address, Persona has invested in default match groups per each country inside the Business Registry Verification to optimize accuracy. These default match groups consist of country-specific normalization and comparison methods and set match requirements

These match groups can be found in the verification template for the Business Registry Verification and are filterable by country.

Customers can work with their account team to adjust the match requirements in each country or the required match groups needed to pass.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between the Business Registry Verification and other reports?

With the BRV’s Match Group framework, customers can define at a very granular level what qualifies as a matched business. You can also quickly automate decisioning in our workflows product based on which match group was used to pass or off other information such as whether the business has an active status.

Once the BRV identifies a business that meets the customer-defined match criteria, other reports like the Business Lookup Report use this identified business to provide a comprehensive set of enrichment data pertaining to the verified business.

In other words, the BRV, as an verification, acts as the source of truth for what constitutes a “verified” business, while reports like the BLR enriches that verified business with additional data points. Persona recommends using the BRV as the starting point for business verification before moving onto enrichment.

Is the VAT the same as a business registration number?

VAT is not the same as a business registration number. A VAT number is issued by the EU while a business registration number is issued by the specific country’s business registry.