Cedar Rose contributes verified regional business information and investigative depth. CleverChain contributes the intelligence orchestration and policy-driven automation that turn that evidence into auditable, decision-ready analysis.
London and Limassol, 9th September 2026 - Cedar Rose, a Coface company and a provider of business information, credit risk and compliance solutions across the Middle East and Africa, and CleverChain, the RegTech behind AI agents for due diligence and AML, have entered into a commercial partnership. The two companies will jointly identify and pursue customer opportunities across the Middle East and North Africa, with scope to support selected opportunities in the UK and selected Asian markets.
Evidence from Cedar Rose, automated analysis from CleverChain
Cedar Rose has developed deep expertise in producing and verifying primary information, including corporate records, ownership and control structures, credit assessments and investigative intelligence, collected locally and normalised to international reporting standards. Established in 1997, it has built its position in markets where reliable information is fragmented, difficult to access or dependent on local presence.
CleverChain, for its part, operates a contextual intelligence engine that orchestrates authoritative sources and models selected on performance for each task, reconciles the evidence they return, resolves entities across languages and naming conventions, tests findings against each customer’s own policies, thresholds and risk appetite, and returns an assessment in which every conclusion remains traceable to the underlying record and to the provider that supplied it. The decision itself remains with the customer, while CleverChain automates and records the work that precedes it, so analysts, auditors and supervisors can follow how the assessment was reached.
Why this combination matters in the MENA region
In MENA, both halves of due diligence are demanding. Registry coverage and disclosure standards vary by jurisdiction; ownership frequently runs through free-zone entities, holding layers and nominee arrangements, and the same company or individual appears under several transliterations of the same name. Obtaining reliable records in those conditions requires local presence and verification at source. Turning records of that kind into a file fit for review requires analysis that can handle evidence which is incomplete, multilingual and sometimes contradictory. Weakness in either half produces inconclusive files, false positives and decisions that are difficult to defend.
Through the partnership, customers can address both halves in a single workflow: verified regional records and investigative depth from Cedar Rose, reconciled, contextualised and automated by CleverChain against the customer’s own policy. Applications include corporate verification and KYB, ownership and control mapping including UBO identification, enhanced due diligence, third-party and supplier onboarding for industrial groups, credit and reputational assessment, and ongoing monitoring.
Industrial groups and supply chains
The same requirement applies outside financial services. Industrial groups operating across MENA regularly onboard distributors, agents, suppliers and joint-venture partners. Cedar Rose’s records across construction, energy, transport and logistics, combined with CleverChain’s automation of third-party and supplier assessment, extensively tested in defence, automotive and other industries, allow procurement, legal and compliance teams to deepen their understanding of third parties.
Built for multiple providers, by design
CleverChain’s architecture is source-agnostic. Data providers and models are selected per jurisdiction, risk scenario and use case, and each provider retains its own contractual relationship with the customer, its own commercial identity and its attribution in the output. Cedar Rose joins CleverChain’s panel of specialist providers with particular depth across MENA, alongside the global information and analytics partners already in place. CleverChain continues to add providers whose data carries specific authority in a market, sector or asset class.
Paul Costers, Chief Sales Officer of Cedar Rose, said:
Ermanno Ciarrocchi, Chief Growth Officer of CleverChain, said:
“Cedar Rose produces evidence that holds up locally, in the original language and at source. We turn that evidence into an assessment that holds up in front of an auditor or a regulator, calibrated to the customer’s own policy rather than to a generic risk model. The customer sees one coherent outcome that informs and streamlines its decision, whether concerning a customer onboarding or a supplier risk assessment.”
About Cedar Rose
Cedar Rose, a Coface company, is a provider of business information, credit risk and compliance solutions with more than 25 years of experience and particular expertise across the Middle East and Africa. Its capabilities include corporate and ownership information, corporate linkage and UBO mapping, credit risk assessment, compliance and AML screening, monitoring and investigative due diligence. Cedar Rose is ISO 27001 certified and has offices in Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It became part of the Coface group in 2025.
About CleverChain
CleverChain is a multi-layer intelligence hub for the verification, due diligence and monitoring of companies, individuals and digital wallets. Its contextual intelligence engine underpins bespoke, automated, auditable solutions for due diligence, screening, data remediation and legal and regulatory review. Its customers include financial institutions, industrial groups and risk consultancies. CleverChain has been named a category winner for Know Your Business and for Shell Company Detection in Chartis Research’s Financial Crime and Compliance50, and has been accepted to test in the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s Regulatory Sandbox. www.cleverchain.ai
Media contacts
Cedar Rose: Amir Temtem, Marketing Manager, Amir.Temtem@cedar-rose.com
CleverChain: Anna Conti Manfrin, CMO, anna@cleverchain.ai