Enhancing Business Trust: A Deep Dive into Companies House Data for Verification

Did you know?
As of March 2024, over 5 Million Companies were registered with the  UK Companies House.

Companies House is an official business registry responsible for incorporating UK businesses. It holds comprehensive data of all registered entities, including incorporation data, registration number, information of shareholders, and ultimate beneficial owners. With detailed information about a business’s legal status, the company house is a rich data source that aids businesses in the verification process.

In this high-risk and dynamic regulatory landscape, business verification is an essential requirement before entering into contracts or partnership relations. It is necessary to identify the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) of a company, not merely for compliance, but also to safeguard the business against fraud. There is a need for appropriate data resources, such as Companies House, which can help to screen an entity by verifying all the information. 

What is Companies House? 

Companies House, the official registrar of businesses in the UK, maintains a complete record of registered companies. 

For comprehensive business verification, there is a need for a central source of data holding company registration details, directors’ information, financial statements, ownership structures, and updates on corporate status changes. Companies House serves businesses in their verification process by providing all the necessary data points. It allows businesses to verify the legitimacy of companies that are registered with it.

Using tools like the Companies House Name Checker, businesses can instantly validate entity names before onboarding, ensuring accurate and compliant records from the very beginning.

Being an online platform, Companies House allows free access to companies’ information for thorough due diligence, making well-informed decisions.

Companies House Data for Business Verification

Business requires real-time business registries to check the legitimacy of a company. In order to check the legal status of an entity, a business requires official registries to verify directly. Company House facilitates the verification process with the following information: ‘

• Company registration number
•  Legal status
•  Incorporation date
•  Data on directors
•  Shareholders
•  The company’s filing history. 

These details facilitate organizations to confirm a business’s existence, understand its ownership structure, and assess potential risks that may result in fraud and financial crimes. 

While performing business verification, it is quite difficult to analyze all the details manually.  Just imagine what it would look like for a compliance officer to monitor thousands of data points manually from the Companies House Website? Is it easy to manually check each detail one by one?  It would result in nothing more than a tedious and time-consuming activity, and would not be effective in verifying a business’s details.

How to Streamline the Business Verification Process with Companies House Search? 

Although the Companies House is the official registrar for companies’ information in the UK, it offers insights into company structure and financial health. Businesses require smart solutions to perform verification. The manual process can be very challenging for checking the legal status of a company. 

By using the Companies House Search by name functionality, compliance officers can instantly access company records without sifting through irrelevant data, improving accuracy and turnaround time.

If a business uses a manual approach, it is highly difficult to streamline the verification process, even with free access to a wealth of data from the company house.  This approach requires a considerable amount of time and incurs heavy labour costs. 

To cope with the hassle of manual verifications, businesses can utilize an automated process that utilizes integrated APIs for fetching data from Companies House. The manual business verification process can no longer help companies to survive in this fast-paced digital world. 

Automate Companies House Search With the Help of APIs 

Instead of relying on static downloads and one-time checks, businesses should integrate real-time APIs for business verification to check live data sources, screen changing risk factors, and trigger automated workflows.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow businesses to automatically retrieve, process, and check company details directly within their systems. They eliminate the need to manually download and analyze documents and reduce operational costs. Furthermore, they decrease the risk of human error and ensure consistent, up-to-date compliance across global entities. 

Limitations of Company House Data

Although the UK company house search facilitates the business verification process, it has certain limitations. Companies House has self-reported data that requires effective techniques for scrutiny and verification. In case a business fails to evaluate directors and company legitimacy, they are open to various risks, including financial, compliance, and operational, which require effective screening and verification. 

A company itself has to report changes in its structure. It may file shifts after a significant delay, which leads to outdated records. Hence, sometimes, Companies House is at risk of not having up-to-date information. Therefore, businesses must use such third-party services that can ensure automated updates about changes and facilitate them to stay ahead in a  dynamic landscape. 

Although with company house data, businesses can perform Know Your Business, which is an integral part of security and compliance. There is a need for screening shareholders, UBos, and directors against warnings, sanctions, PEPs, and regulatory enforcement. Potential violations of warnings and regulatory enforcement by potential entities can result in fraud, Non-compliance penalties, and reputational damage. 

How The KYB Empowers Businesses to Do Verification Against Official Entities?

Businesses require an automated process to perform verification against official entities. The KYB not only helps in API integration for automated verification of company house data to reduce time, but also in various other areas. 

The KYB assists the verification process and strengthens your compliance with the following features: 

• Screens Directors and UBOs against PEPs and sanctions. adverse media, warnings, and regulatory enforcement.
• Performs pre-onboarding risk assessment to evaluate business partners.
• Automates Mapping of Ownership Structures and unveils hidden UBOs. 
• Assists with Ongoing Monitoring to identify changes in company status, Shareholder structure updates, and to indicate emerging risks.