In today’s global market, where businesses are no longer held back by the physical boundaries of their country’s borders, there are endless opportunities to forge new partnerships with companies from all over the world. However, an expanded market can make it tricky to know if these new partners are actually who they say they are, and if you’re not careful, you could end up causing damage to your business instead of helping it grow.
Electronic Identity Verification (eIDV) is a vital tool in identifying potential customers instantly and across various languages and scripts. It is mainly used by financial institutions, such as banks, to reduce fraud and to comply with due diligence and KYC and KYB protocols. However, all types of industries use it to verify the identities of potential business partners before entering a new working relationship with them.
Verifying the data given by individuals and businesses is a critical first process in protecting your business against making risky transactions and partnerships, and ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering laws, privacy laws, and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) laws.
So how does it work?
Electronic identity verification takes the data provided by a corporation or individual and matches the data against multiple databases to determine if it is accurate. According to Investopedia “Various types of databases, both public and proprietary may be used in eIDV, including credit bureau data, police data, and vehicle history data.” But what databases would you use for corporations which are large and complex entities that operate in multiple foreign jurisdictions?
That’s where you’ll need the specialized databases that business intelligence companies, such as Cedar Rose, carefully curate by collecting the data from various public sources and then verifying it to ensure accuracy. Below, we discuss some of the databases that Cedar Rose uses, including the information they provide and an explanation of how they help with electronic identity verification.
Directorship & Shareholding Database
This database covers over 230 countries with a particular focus on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Its purpose is to instantly identify links between a company and other companies, directors, shareholders, and even PO Box addresses and telephone numbers.
It is an invaluable tool that helps governments, compliance professionals, journalists, due diligence investigators, auditors, and NGOs compile and download credit reports, company profiles, business information reports, shareholder and director reports. It helps the interested parties understand the relationship between all these entities, which is key to detecting shell companies and suspicious activities as well as identifying any UBOs.
Company Credit Database
The Company Credit Database focuses mainly on the financial aspects of a business. Depending on your subscription you will gain either partial or full access to the financial information of millions of companies in over 230 countries.
Created for the use of debt collection, finance, credit and KYC reporting, this company database gives finance professionals such as credit managers, salespeople, financial analysts, and insurers an understanding of a company's economic activity. Discover the credit risk, size, turnover, and locations for businesses within the MENA region.
Person Identification Database
This database aids in the authentication of the identities of the individuals behind the companies. It is a necessary tool for credit managers, HR managers, and compliance professionals who often need to verify the identities of company owners and top-level management as part of background screening, employment verification, KYC compliance and AML anti-money laundering protocols.
Other Identity Verification Databases
Cedar Rose also has access to databases in various countries which are used specifically for the purposes of electronic identity verification, global compliance screening, sanctions screening or PEP Screening (Politically Exposed Persons Screening).
Some of these databases can be utilised via APIs for instant electronic identity verification and this, combined with the above in-house databases mentioned above enables Cedar Rose to offer identity verification checks for companies, directors and shareholders in Arabic and Persian speaking countries in the Middle East and Africa such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco and Lebanon, as well as for countries like Russia and Romania. Cedar Rose is unique in offering electronic identity verification for KYC and KYB compliance for these countries.
How does Cedar Rose maintain its database?
Since beginning our operations in 1997, we have always prioritized the cleaning of our data. That is why Cedar Rose is known to have one of the largest and cleanest databases in the industry.
What does that mean? Well, the collection of data is always prone to human error; it often contains spelling mistakes or incorrect translations, or is incomplete, disorganized, or unstructured.
Data can also be duplicated and inconsistent; for example, a company may be registered under two different names in different data sources, such as both “XXX Company LTD” and “XXX Company Limited”. Duplication is a result of either multiple databases merging or a lack of standards in naming conventions.
This inconsistency creates confusion and ambiguity, which leads to false data and, therefore, inaccurate results, which make it very difficult to accurately conduct due diligence, KYC, and electronic identity verification procedures.
That is why error-prevention strategies must be implemented before the processing, analysing and use of data. That way, human error is minimized as much as possible, and the results are consistent, accurate and valid. At Cedar Rose, we do this by using data cleansing (also known as data cleaning or scrubbing), a process that is designed to identify and correct inaccurate and corrupt data through deletion replacement or modification.
This process ensures that our data remains as accurate as possible and that our clients always receive consistent quality service that helps them minimize the risk that comes with new business relationships.
Conclusion
Cedar Rose was the first company to offer electronic Identity Verification for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in 2015. We were the first to begin collecting, translating and transcribing information to verify users across the MENA region.
Over 20 years later, we have built an internationally recognised eidv service that allows users to instantly authenticate the identities of over 160 million individuals from the MENA countries, Russia, Romania and beyond.
For more information on company databases and eIDV, give us a call today on +357 25 346630 or email info@cedar-rose.com