Use the HitHorizons company database tools to quickly conduct due diligence on prospective customers, business partners, distributors, stakeholders, or suppliers.
Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process of verifying the identity of a prospective customer. While KYC focuses on conducting business with individuals, Know Your Business (KYB) relates to verifying the identity and background of corporate customers.
KYC/KYB requirements vary by jurisdiction and use case, but the main idea is to obtain as much information as possible before conducting any business.
Step 1: Search the Company
When starting a due diligence process, your first step is to determine whether the prospective subject is active in business.
Fortunately, HitHorizons provides many tools that are available free of charge. Let's begin with the European Company Database Search.
If you plan to search within a single jurisdiction, feel free to select your target country first.
In the search engine, enter the name or registration identifier provided by the subject (i.e. your prospective customer).
Below, you can select the appropriate company types, including proprietorships, government bodies, and more. If you are unsure, select all available company types. If you are searching for a company that may have multiple entities connected to the main/mother entity, you can choose to include branches in the results as well.
While typing in the subject's name, the search engine will automatically suggest the closest name or identifier.
Step 2: Verify the Subject's Details
Once you find the matching subject, check whether the subject's name, address, registration identification number, and other details match the information provided by your prospective customer. By taking a quick look at the summary, you can easily determine whether the subject is still in business, has published contact details, maintains active social media channels, and more.
When applicable, a Value Added Tax (VAT) number may help you determine whether a prospective customer is an entity registered to collect, report, and remit VAT (in other words, a VAT payer). In some countries, HitHorizons may also help you verify invoicing details to ensure that the information on invoices remains accurate over time.
For more complex assessments, you can always access additional information as a registered HitHorizons user. For example, you can review statistics on sales and employees, or dive deeper into a company's patent activity history and more.
Step 3: Scale Up with the Screener and API
To perform a KYC/KYB process on multiple entities, we recommend using the HitHorizons Screener, a more advanced research tool.
All the information you access through the search engine, company profiles, or the Screener can also be integrated into your preferred platform via the HitHorizons API, which provides full access to our database.
To obtain the most comprehensive KYC/KYB report — including full credit checks, financials, group structure, and more — we recommend purchasing a HitHorizons Financial Report (available via our API) and keeping it for future reference as proof of having performed a full KYC/KYB process for each company.
