How To Verify a Company in Indonesia? An Ultimate Guide

The Indonesian economic climate remains dynamic, with a level of stability and strength coming from growing domestic demand and infrastructure investment. On the political side, the administration further fosters growth through drives for regulatory reforms and pro-investment measures, which include bids to streamline company licensing and improve infrastructure development. As companies explore the progressing opportunities, understanding how to verify a company in Indonesia is crucial and first for establishing safe and sustainable business relationships. As per the World Bank report, Indonesia’s GDP growth is projected at 5% for 2023, with a medium-term outlook of 4.9% for 20224-2026.

Despite global uncertainties, Indonesia’s diverse economy and ongoing reforms are creating new opportunities for both domestic and foreign businesses. Financial institutions are making efforts to intercept fraud by making compliance essential for businesses. To verify a company in Indonesia, you should get the corporate data of the company you are looking for. 

How to Verify if a Company is Registered in Indonesia?

If you are looking to verify a company in Indonesia, you must screen the company data against the public registry. Indonesia’s Ministry of Law and Human Rights is responsible for managing the AHU-Online platform. On this website, you can find the legal administrative information about the registered businesses and entities in Indonesia. The key responsibilities of AHU include maintaining the company’s records and focusing on regulatory compliance to ensure complete business transparency.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Verify a Company in Indonesia

The AHU portal is available in both English and Indonesian, and in order to verify a company in Indonesia, follow these steps:

Company Name: You can search any Indonesian business using its full or partial name. Just add a relevant keyword in the search bar, and you will be taken to a company you are looking for.

Nomor Induk Berusaha (NIB): It is the unique identifier for each registered organization in Indonesia. In the company search bar, just enter it to verify any company.

Once you enter the required information, the AHU website will give you access to the company’s profile details.

Challenges to Verify a Company in Indonesia

The process of business verifications can pose quite a alot of challenges. To verify a company in Indonesia, you must have reliable company data to confirm the legal standing of that company. Some challenges of company verification on the AHU portal are:

• Restricted Access to Company Data

On the portal, there are some restrictions on data visibility that limit the amount of accessible data, which is challenging for company verification in Indonesia.

• Language Barrier

On almost every page of the AHU portal, the challenge of the language barrier persists. In order to verify a company in Indonesia, each time you visit a new page, it shows company information in Indonesian. For not native Indonesians, it can be really challenging as they have to manually translate a webpage into English.

• Website Incomprehensibility

A user accessing the business information may feel perplexed because of the intricate website. Overall, the AHU online portal is too complex for a non-business person. This hurdle can slow down the business verification procedures in Indonesia. For example, when navigating different portal sections, you will not understand which page to visit to verify a company in Indonesia.

• Extensive Verification Procedure

To verify a company in Indonesia, you are required to submit your legal documents. You must provide an extensive set of personal pieces of information in order to retrieve data for a specific business. This extensive procedure can complicate your efforts to verify a company in Indonesia.

• Essential Sign-Up Required

Some sections of the AHU portal are not available for public use. You must be a notary, government official, or authorized personnel registered on the portal to manage various administrative functions related to company verification.

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How to Verify an Ultimate Beneficial Owner UBO in Indonesia?

In Indonesia, as per the Open Ownership Principles, the beneficial owner is the person having more than 25% ownership or control over a company; however, for the high-risk sectors and individuals, this threshold is expected to lower, which may ultimately redefine the BO criteria and threshold. The Ministry of Law and Human Rights is responsible for maintaining the central beneficial ownership information and compiling data from multiple government sources.

Despite Indonesia’s efforts to create a transparent business landscape, there are still some challenges that persist and need improvement. For example, accessing comprehensive UBO data is still challenging because it is not it is publicly available, and for that, you have to source them from reliable sources to enhance enhance transparency.

Conducting AML Checks on businesses in Indonesia

One of the critical steps to verify a company in Indonesia is to apply anti-money laundering checks on businesses to combat financial crimes. To verify a company in Indonesia, you can conduct various AML checks for business verification. These checks are conducted on both the business and the individuals who own and run them or are associated with them directly or indirectly. To ensure AML compliance, the following procedures are essential:

• Screening against international sanctions lists
• Adverse media checks
• Screening against Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) lists

Licenses and Certifications

• Bank of Indonesia

The Central Bank of Indonesia plays a role in the national monetary stability and regulation of the financial system. It is also responsible for formulating and implementing Indonesia’s monetary policy toward price stability and controlling inflation to ensure stable economic growth. This financial regulator does not directly publish a list of licensed financial entities. However, the list can be sourced from the Finanacial Services Authority  (OJK) website. This includes fintechs, banks, and other financial institutions authorized to operate in Indonesia.

• Otoritas Jasa Keuangan

The Indonesian Financial Services Authority (also known as OJK) regulates and supervises the financial services industry, which includes banking, capital markets, insurance, and other types of non-banking financial institutions. Aside from overseeing and protecting the rights of consumers in the financial services sector through education and information, it also publishes a list of licensed banks and financial institutions to guide people in making the right decisions in their finances. The OJK surveys the financial system to maintain its stability by conducting assessments and implementing measures to mitigate systemic risks.

• Kementerian Perdagangan

The Kementerian Perdagangan (Ministry of Trade) in Indonesia is responsible for managing and regulating trade-related activities, both domestically and internationally. Its role is critical in shaping the nation’s trade policies, promoting exports, protecting consumers, and ensuring fair trade practices. Businesses involved in any kind of trade must acquire licenses from this ministry, especially those engaged in import-export activities.

How Can The KYB Help?

If you want to verify a company in Indonesia, The KYB will offer you comprehensive business verification services to help you access complete organization data. Being the world’s largest and most accurate primary data source provider, our experts at The KYB can help you with company verification by collecting all business information so you can find all the essential company data in a unified platform. With our real-time data integration, blazing swift API, and record-keeping, you can access all corporate registries on our platform. We consolidate data with databases of 300M+ companies encompassing 250+ countries and states. Rely on us for business verification services and check the legal status of any Indonesian company.