API overview
This overview of the API covers key information to help you understand the API, and its endpoints, more deeply.
The Data Verification API returns normalised data from carefully-selected sources, making it easy for you to interpret and use the responses regardless of the source.
You can find the full list of endpoints in the OpenAPI reference documentation.
Coverage
The following tables show which attributes and countries are available. Note that each attribute corresponds to an endpoint in the API. Click the table headers for more information about each endpoint.
For an overview of all the attributes, data sources and countries, visit the Coverage page.
Natural persons
| Basic information | Account holder | Identity verification | Finance | Screening | Search (beta) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global | ||||||
| Austria | ||||||
| Denmark | ||||||
| Finland | ||||||
| France | ||||||
| Germany | ||||||
| Italy | ||||||
| Netherlands | ||||||
| Norway | ||||||
| Sweden | ||||||
| United Kingdom |
Organisations
| Basic information | Ownership | Ultimate Beneficiary Owner (UBO) | Roles | Authorisations | Screening | Search (beta) | Finance | Account holder | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Global | |||||||||
| Belgium | |||||||||
| Denmark | |||||||||
| Finland | |||||||||
| France | |||||||||
| Italy | |||||||||
| Netherlands | |||||||||
| Norway | |||||||||
| Sweden | |||||||||
| United Kingdom |
Endpoints for natural persons
Account holder
The Account holder endpoint allows you to verify if a specific bank account exists and if the name of its owner matches the name you provide. Depending on the source, either IBAN or account number can be provided as input.
Basic information
The Basic endpoint contains basic information about a person like name, address (specifying multiple types of address if registered in the data sources, such as postal, permanent, foreign), date of birth (including place of birth), citizenship (multiple citizenship, if any), and nationality.
Finance
The Finance endpoint can be used to retrieve financial information about a person. For example, their credit score and information about their income and wealth.
Identity verification
The Identity verification endpoint can be used to verify a natural person's identity and address information.
The endpoint returns a value (identified, partiallyIdentified, notIdentified) to confirm whether a given person's identity and address attributes provided in the API request match the data found in the registries.
Use this endpoint to perform checks for data consistency that include checking the given address and identity attributes, such as the combination of name, surname and residential address, against the available data sources. For example, you can use this endpoint if you already know someone's address and need to perform enhanced due diligence to verify the person and address authenticity.
Screening
The Screening endpoint provides information about whether the person in question is:
- a PEP (politically exposed person)
- on a sanction list
- on an adverse media list
PEP
A politically exposed person is someone who has a prominent public function and, thus, presents a higher risk of involvement in, for example, bribery or corruption. Family members or close associates of such people are also considered PEPs. It is important to be aware of the PEP status of one's customers in order to apply any precautions that may be necessary.
Signicat covers the following standard PEP lists:
- The Acuris C6 global PEP list
- PEP Edge (detailed coverage of Nordic PEPs, where Trapets is the editor)
Sanction lists
Sanction lists are created by one or more countries or public bodies to apply commercial or financial penalties to individuals, groups, or entire countries. For example, the EU has sanctions that involve freezing the funds and economic resources of specific natural persons and organisations.
To observe these restrictions properly, it is important to check that your customers are not included in any sanction lists.
Signicat covers the following standard sanction lists:
- EU Consolidated list of persons, groups, and entities subject to EU financial sanctions.
- UN consolidated
- OFAC Specially Designated Nationals
- HM Treasury - consolidated list of financial sanctions
Optionally, local national sanction lists can be enabled on request.
Search
With the Search endpoint, you can search for a person's ID number using several parameters, such as name and date of birth.
This endpoint is in beta. Its functionality is subject to change without prior notice.
Endpoints for organisations
Account holder (org)
The Account holder endpoint allows you to verify if a specific bank account exists and if the name of its owner matches the company name you provide. Depending on the data source, you can make a request with either:
- IBAN
- Account number
The usage of query parameters in this endpoint varies based on the source and country where you want to verify an IBAN or an account number.
The following table shows how to use the query parameters:
| Parameters | Description |
|---|---|
accountNumber | The account number or IBAN number that you want to verify. This is a required parameter. |
idList | The company ID, branch ID and VAT number of the organisation, that you want to verify together with the IBAN number. This parameter is specific to Surepay data source. Available values per country:
idList format is: <VALUE>, <ID> (e.g NL_KVK, 012345678). |
idType | The type of accountNumber that is being validated. If not specified, IBAN is used by default. This is specific to Surepay data source. |
name | Name of the organisation to verify. |
country | The country code (ISO 3166-1 format) under consideration for IBAN verification. For example, to verify an IBAN from Netherland, then use country code NL. This parameter determines the country used in the idList parameter. This is a required parameter. |
Example
The following API request example can be used to verify an IBAN together with the name of an organisation (name), KVK number (NL_KVK), KVK branch number (NL_KVK) and VAT number (EU_VAT).
https://api.signicat.com/info/lookup/countries/NL/organizations/accountnumber/NL72ABCD1236548754/verify?
&name=We care 4 U
&idType=IBAN
&idList=NL_KVK, 01234565
&idList=NL_KVK_BRANCH, 012345698124
&idList=EU_VAT, NL1245658
Parameters overview
Example of idList parameter
To verify any additional parameter (together with the IBAN), you must specify the parameters in the query string of the URL in your API request. For example, https://api.signicat.com/info/lookup/countries/NL/organizations/accountnumber/<IBAN_CODE>/verify?name=<NAME>&idType=IBAN&idList=<VALUE, ID>.
Basic information (org)
The Basic endpoint provides standard information about an organisation like trade name, address, organisation type, legal status, and industry sector.
Ownership (org)
The Ownership endpoint provides information about the owners of an organisation. Owners of an organisation can be natural persons or other organisations.
UBO (org)
The UBO endpoint provides information about the Ultimate Beneficiary Owner (UBO) of an organisation.
UBO is a term used to describe the natural person who is the ultimate effective owner of an organisation, even if that person is not a direct owner of that organisation. For example, imagine a case where the company you need more information about is owned by another company, which is owned by a natural person. This UBO wouldn't appear in the ownership attribute, since they are not a direct owner of the company.
Establishing the UBO can be challenging, especially when ownership is distributed over different countries or passes through countries like Liechtenstein or Bermuda.
As defined by the 4th EU AML directive, a UBO is any natural person who, directly or indirectly:
- holds at least 25% plus one share of the share capital, or
- exercises at least 25% of the voting rights, or
- is the beneficiary of at least 25% of the legal entity's capital
Note that this definition has been simplified and you should review the directive if you want to know more. Also, note that each country may define even lower thresholds, according to which a natural person can be considered a UBO, so it is always important to review the domestic laws applicable.
Key terms (org)
This section summarises some terms related to UBO that are used in the Data Verification API.
- Direct ownership: This is the simplest ownership model. A person or entity is considered a direct owner of an organisation if they do not own it through another entity.
- Indirect ownership: A person or entity is considered an indirect owner of an organisation if they own an entity that, in turn, owns the organisation we are interested in. For instance, if John owns (or partially owns) Company A, and Company A is a direct owner of Company Z, that makes John an indirect owner of Company Z as well. Indirect ownership can have one or multiple paths: extending our example above, if John also owns a second company, Company B, and this entity is a part-owner of Company Z, that makes John the indirect owner of Company Z through two different paths. This will also affect how the indirect ownership percentage is calculated.
- Integrated ownership: The sum of direct and indirect ownership a person or other entity has in a specific company (source: T-rank)
- Voting rights: Rights granted to a person or entity in connection with how many shares they own in an organisation. There typically is a direct correlation between shares owned and voting rights: if John owns 20% of the shares of Company A, his vote is worth 20%. However, note that voting rights can be restricted or expanded by using different types of shares (share classes). For example, one could define share classes which only give the right to receive financial returns on the investment, but without the right to vote at the shareholders' assembly.
- Voting power: A part-owner of an organisation can have more or less voting power based on how much they can impact a vote in different scenarios. Voting power is not directly correlated to shares owned (when those shares give the right to vote at the shareholders' assembly). For example, consider an organisation with three shareholders, two of which hold 49.5% of the shares each, with the third one, Natalie, holding only 1% of the shares. In any voting scenario in which the other two shareholders don't agree, Natalie will always sway the vote, which gives her a voting power of 50%.
Related links (org)
The following links might be useful if you want to learn more about how different ownership models are calculated:
- Exploring integrated ownership: direct, indirect and multiple-path, by Bureau Van Dijk.
- Integrated Ownership Calculation (pdf), by T-rank.
Roles (org)
The Roles endpoint provides the personal details of natural persons who have a registered role in an organisation. This includes board members and daily management.
Authorisations (org)
The Authorisations endpoint tells you about persons or organisations ("signees") who have been authorised to act on behalf of the organisation on a certain matter ("mandate").
We identify two different types of authorisation:
- Signing rights, covering people with authorisation to sign and to act on behalf of the business in all matters.
- Power of procuration, people with the authorisation to sign and to act on behalf of the business in specific, limited matters.
For both types of authorisation, we try to generate all possible combinations of required persons to achieve a certain mandate. This makes it easy for you to do automatic checks on mandates. You could for example automatically check the validity of a signed document by checking the signees with the list we provide (for the applicable mandate). If we cannot establish the possible combinations of persons (for a specific mandate), we will inform you about the mandates of individual signees.
Special cases
For Swedish organisations with business type Aktiebolag (limited company), if the company only consists of one board member and one deputy board member - this is the minimum requirement for a limited company - the only board member has the right to sign himself for the company. Visit the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) website for more details.
Screening (org)
The Screening endpoint tells you if the organisation is mentioned on any sanction lists.
Sanction lists are created by one or more countries to apply commercial or financial penalties to individuals, groups, or entire countries. For example, the EU has sanctions that involve freezing the funds and economic resources of specific natural persons and organisations.
To observe these restrictions properly, it is important to check that your customers are not included in any sanction lists.
Finance (org)
The Finance endpoint allows you to retrieve some financial information about an organisation. This includes information such as their credit rating and yearly profit/turnover figures.
Search (org)
With the Search endpoint, you can search for an organisation by name in cases when the organisation number is not available. The response returns all organisations (together with the address details) that match the name sent in the request.
About the id parameter in organisation endpoints
Most organisation endpoints in the Data Verification API have two required path parameters:
countryid
These parameters serve to narrow down the organisation that you want to obtain information about. There is only one way to use the country parameter (by entering an ISO 3166-1 country code), but several in the case of id.
There are three different types of IDs that can be used to identify an organisation:
organization: the ID of the organisation as stated in the relevant national registry. This is the default option. Not always unique.tax: the tax ID of the organisation as stated in the relevant tax registry. For example, EIN in the US.external: the ID assigned to the organisation by the source that provides organisational information. Always unique.
You can specify which type of ID you want to use in your request with the idType query parameter. In some cases, you can skip this and let the API use the default option (organization). You can use the default option if the organisation is registered in a country where organisation numbers are unique, such as Norway or Sweden. In countries where organisation numbers are not unique, like the US or Germany, you could get multiple hits when you try to use the organisation number. If this happens, we suggest using the tax ID or external ID as an alternative. An example of an external ID is the DUNS number (assigned by Dun & Bradstreet) or the BvD ID (assigned by Bureau van Dijk).
How to look up organisations using a tax or external ID
If you can't use an organisational ID, you can find out a company's tax ID or external ID with the Search endpoint of the Data Verification API. Therefore, there are two main steps:
- Use the Search endpoint to find the company you are interested in. Extract the
externalIdortaxNumberfrom the response. - Use the extracted ID on any of the other organisation endpoints to find the information you want.
What follows is an example of how to find the ultimate beneficial owners of a fictional German company called "Nunstück GmbH". Note that all information used here is fictional.
- Use the Search endpoint to find the company you are interested in. It helps to use several parameters to refine your search. For our example, we enter
Nunstückas thenameandDEincountries. If you know the organisation number, it helps to use it here (in theidparameter). Even though it isn't unique, using it together with the name increases the likelihood of getting a single result in the response. - Review the API response. If there are several results, identify the company you're interested in based on the
dataof each result. - Find Nunstück's
taxNumberorexternalIdin thedataarray of the response. For this example, we use the external ID. - Use the Ultimate beneficial owners endpoint to find out the information you need. Enter
DEas thecountry, the external ID obtained in the previous step as theid, andexternalas theidType.
The response will contain information about the ultimate beneficial owners of Nunstück GmbH.
The images below show two examples of how to use the idType parameter:
