TABLE OF CONTENTS


Summary

Company credit checks are a feature we are introducing into our entity verification offering. This will allow customers to develop a more complete financial and credit view of their clients, beyond the information provided by company registers.


Within the company credit checks it is deeper information regarding a company, including their creditworthiness, historical and current credit scores, historical company information, company financial position, P&L and balance sheet information (where available) alongside other financial metrics.


We’ve partnered with Creditsafe/Creditorwatch to allow our customers to pull more detailed information on their clients via Creditsafe/Creditorwatch company credit report. This information can be used as part of a credit decision process by lenders (Financial Institutions that lend money) or when our customers want to build a more detailed view of the financial position of their clients.


Please note there is a billable charge for each report. The cost varies depending on the entity's jurisdiction. Please contact support@firstaml.com for further information on costings.  


How it works

Manually requesting the credit check

  1. Create an entity case for a private company in the platform. Refer to our entity case creation article for step-by-step instructions.
  2. Click the ‘Start unwrap’ button to obtain the company registry number or if you have entered the company number during the case creation process proceed to Step 3. The company number is a mandatory field if a user wishes to run company credit checks.
  3. Navigate to the Manifest and click on the relevant entity you wish to run the credit check on. This will open a slide-out to the right, click on the ‘Run credit check' button at the top right-hand corner. The ‘Run credit check’ button will be disabled (greyed out) if there is no company registry number.
  4. The company credit check will be generated under ‘Requirements’ for review. The report will take <20 seconds to be generated.


Create an automation for credit check


You can automate the company credit check to run as soon as a case is submitted.

Step 1: Set up the Automation Rule

Navigate to Manifest settings in the Source platform and create an automation rule for the company credit check. This will ensure the check is triggered automatically after case submission.



Step 2: Add the Compliance Rule

Create or update a compliance rule that applies the credit check requirement to the relevant cases. This tells the platform which cases should have the check run.




Step 3: Submit Accurate Company Details

For the automation to work correctly, the following information must be entered at case creation:

  • Company name

  • Country

  • Company registration number

If any of these fields are missing or incorrect, the credit check may not run automatically.


What is in the company credit check?

The data within a business credit report generally fits into three areas:

  1. Scores & Limits
  2. Core Business Data
  3. Payment Data


Scores & limits

The Creditsafe/Creditorwatch scoring system is designed to help you make informed decisions about a company's financial stability quickly and accurately. Advanced statistical techniques and key metrics are used to predict 70% of company insolvencies up to 12 months in advance, saving you from the worry of bad debt. The Credit Score is a number between 0 and 100 that represents the level of risk associated with a company.


Various factors are taken into account such as trade payment information, public information, industry sector analysis, and other performance indicators to generate this score.


The higher the score, the lower the risk of default or bankruptcy, while a lower score indicates a higher risk of default or bankruptcy. For easy decision-making, we have colour-coded the scores based on severity, with green indicating low risk and red indicating high risk.


The Credit Score is backed by statistical analysis and considers important variables such as financials, trade payments, demographics, industry, legal filings, group structure, business size, and more to provide you with an accurate assessment of a company's creditworthiness.


Credit Score

The Creditsafe/Creditorwatch Credit Score works on a scale of 1-100 and predicts the likelihood that a company's payment performance will become seriously delinquent, defined as 90-plus days beyond terms within the next 12 months or that the business will go bankrupt.


International Score

The Creditsafe/Creditorwatch International Score is a standardized score derived from the Creditsafe/Creditorwatch rating. It enables credit risk comparison between companies that are registered in different countries.


Credit Limit

The Creditsafe/Creditorwatch recommended credit limit is calculated using information from a company's payment record and from the payment records of similar companies. The Credit Limit is a recommendation of the maximum amount of credit you should consider offering this company at one time.


Compliance Alerts

Creditsafe/Creditorwatch monitors over 35,000 data sources including sanction and enforcement lists, adverse media, politically exposed people (PEPs) lists and state-owned enterprise data. If a business, related company or officer has been flagged, you can see this straight from the business report dashboard.


Days Beyond Terms (DBT)

Our extensive trade payment data enables us to calculate a business' DBT score. This illustrates how well a company pays their bills by showing how late they pay, and also how it compares to their industry.


Payment Trends

Charts and graphs highlight key data points, helping you understand at a glance if there are any substantial changes over the past 5 years in how a business pays.


Business Spend Trend

Indicates whether the company's total annual business spend is increasing or decreasing compared to the previous 12 months.


Business Spend Trend

Indicates whether the company's total annual business spend is increasing or decreasing compared to the previous 12 months.


Core Business Data

This section of the report includes valuable data that can help you comprehend any future issues that may affect the company. For instance, are there any significant changes in the executive team? Has there been an increase in the number of liens placed on the company?


To have a better understanding of how a company functions, it is essential to know more about the people leading the business. By reviewing information on the company's leaders, you can acquire a better insight into the business's direction.


Safe Number

Creditsafe/Creditorwatch has a unique identifier for every registered company


Company Information

Includes any other legal names such as a DBA, address, phone number and website


SIC Description

The Standard Industrial Classification is a system for classifying industries by a four-digit code


Business Type

Is the company a Corporation, Cooperative, Government, Incorporation, LLC, LLP, Non-Profit, Partnership, or Sole Proprietorship


Location Type

See if the location is a Headquarters, Branch, Subsidiary, Franchise, Franchisor or Single Office


Officer Information

See the officers of each company and identify other known affiliations


Group Structure & Linkages

Corporate hierarchical structure identifying the head office, parent companies, subsidiaries and branches at a global level


Trading Locations

Identify any logistics concerns by knowing the full list of company addresses


Years in Business

Learn how long a company has been operating and its incorporation date


Annual Sales Amount

See how much revenue a company earned last year


Number of Employees

Total number of people who work for a company


Legal Filings

State and Federal Tax Liens, UCC Filings, Judgments and Bankruptcies


Government Award Information

Identify companies that have been awarded government contracts or grants.


Compliance Indicators

Key compliance indicators such as sanctioned business information.


Historical Data

See what's changed and when


Payment Data

Trade payment history is the backbone of a credit report as understanding how a company has managed their credit in the past is the key indicator of future performance. Companies with a long history of managing their business credit effectively are most likely to continue this pattern into the future.


Creditsafe/Creditorwatch  credit reports include known payment history and trend analysis. The current and historical payment behaviour of a business is the strongest predictor of their future payment behavior. If a company falls behind on its invoices it is proven to be more likely to become delinquent in the future.  Creditsafe/Creditorwatch reports all include Trade Data with millions of new payment experiences uploaded into our reports in our ever-growing trade database.


Trade Lines

Easily see how many other companies are known to be extending them credit and how timely they’re paying those bills


Financials

Directly link to financial statement information for public companies and non-profit organizations based on income statements and balance sheets


Where does the data come from?

The data used to create the scores and limits comes from working with official sources such as Government entities and the Court System, and our selected global network of international data partners.

To further increase the validity of the data, our supplier includes trade payment data from their trusted trade payment data suppliers to give you the most accurate picture of the financial stability of a company.


What countries can company credit checks be run in?

We can provide access to 199 countries, so reports can be run on clients based anywhere in the world! Please reach out to your First AML contact who can provide additional information on data coverage.


Is this available for all customers?

Yes, the company credit checks are available for all First AML customers globally, regardless of where you are located 



International credit report FAQS (by international creditsafe means non-UK) 


What information does a international report include as standard?
Our international reports include most of the information you would expect to find in a local report, however not all countries have an equivalent to Companies House in the UK. We sometimes need to gather information from other local sources so the information may vary country by country.


Where do you get your data from for an online international credit report?
Our data is collected from over 9,000 sources; where possible we will collect information from official registries similar to Companies House. Our supplier has a network of 23 offices and trusted local partners which allow them to collect information locally; ensuring we always deliver quality, fresh information.


Why can’t I find a particular company?
The information we hold is LIVE therefore it’s not always possible to keep up to-date information on every business. If you cannot find a company on our live database please flag this with support [link support ticket] and we will investigate for you.


How long will it take to receive my report?
99.9% of all reports requested by our customers are typically delivered instantly online.


How often are the reports updated?
Creditsafe international database reports are updated in real-time, over 1 million times a day.


Why are the credit scores banded A to E, rather than 1-100?
Because not all countries use a 1-100 score; using an A-E score makes it easier for you to compare the credit risk of companies from across different countries. A is the lowest risk, D the highest risk and E is not scored.


Who do some companies not have a score?
Some companies aren’t scored because in certain countries we rely on local suppliers and they may have insufficient information about the company to calculate a reliable score. Other reasons could be the company is late in filing its financial statement, the company is already involved in insolvency proceedings or the company is inactive or dissolved. Where possible Creditsafe will always provide a company score. 


Why would some reports be missing financial information?
Every country has different filing laws and some countries do not require companies to file accounts so it may not be possible to provide financial information on companies in certain countries. Where possible we will always provide detailed financials for a company in any country if the information is accessible.


Are searches anonymous, or do they leave a footprint?
All business searches are anonymous and do not leave a footprint.


Do you have director information for all countries?
Although we hold details on millions of company directors worldwide, sometimes it is not possible to provide details of a director or senior executive due to local data privacy regulations


Why don’t some reports contain payment information?
Typically, 60% of reports accessed online contain supplier payment information. Due to the fact payment information is collected directly from suppliers it is not always possible to collect payment data on every business.