What a business registry check tells you, and what it leaves out
A registry lookup confirms that a company with that number exists and shows what it last filed. It does not prove the applicant represents it, who really owns it, or that it trades as it says. Each gap needs its own check.
Charles Archibong, Co-founder
· 6 min read
Key takeaways
- A registry match proves a company exists and shows its filed record, not that the applicant can act for it.
- Registers are only as current as the company's last filing, so treat the record as dated evidence.
- A not-found result and a registry outage are different findings and must be routed differently.
- Pair the lookup with applicant, ownership and screening checks before you approve.
A business registry lookup confirms two things: that a company with the registration number you were given exists in the official register, and what that register says about it (its name, legal form, status, registration date, registered address and, in many registers, its officers and shareholders). That is the foundation of know-your-business (KYB), and it is a narrow one.
It does not confirm that the person in front of you can act for the company, who ultimately owns it, that the filed details are current, or that the business does what it says. Registration numbers are public. Treat the lookup as the first of several checks, and plan the others before you build the flow.
What does a registry match actually confirm?
A match means the register holds an entry under that number. The entry is a record of what the company, or its agent, filed at some point. Read it as dated evidence from an authoritative source, not as a live description of the business.
The international baseline asks for more than a match. The FATF's Interpretive Note to Recommendation 10 says that for a customer that is a legal person, institutions should identify and verify its name, legal form and proof of existence, the powers that bind it (for example its memorandum and articles), the names of its senior managers and its registered office address, and then identify its beneficial owners (FATF Recommendations, updated October 2025 (opens in a new tab)). A registry lookup covers the first of those well and some of the rest partially. How your own regulator applies this differs by jurisdiction; this article is general information, not legal advice.
Question | Registry lookup answers it? | What closes the gap |
|---|---|---|
Does this company exist? | Yes, at the time of the last filing | Nothing more, unless status looks stale |
Is it active, dissolved or struck off? | Usually, as filed | Re-check before large limits |
Is the name the applicant gave the registered name? | Yes, by comparison | Name match on the result |
Who are its directors and shareholders? | Often, as filed | Key people discovery and reconciliation |
Who ultimately owns or controls it? | Rarely, and not through corporate layers | Beneficial ownership work |
Is the applicant allowed to act for it? | No | Applicant identity check against named officers, plus authority evidence |
Is it on a sanctions list, or are its people? | No | Watchlist screening of the entity and its people |
Does it trade from the address it filed? | No | Premises evidence, documents, site visit for high risk |
Where do registry results mislead teams?
A match on a stale record
Registers depend on filings. A company that changed directors last year and never filed the change will return the old board. An active status can survive long after trading stopped, because nobody told the registrar. The record is authoritative about what was filed, not about today.
A practical response: read the registration date and status alongside everything else. A company registered a few weeks ago that asks for high monthly payment volumes is not suspicious by itself, but it is a reason to ask for more evidence rather than approve on the lookup alone.
Not found is not the same as unavailable
A registry that answers "no such number" has told you something about the applicant. A registry that times out has told you nothing. Routing both to decline turns an outage into a rejection of a real business. Route a genuine not-found to decline or review, and a lookup failure to a retry.
The wrong register
Some countries keep more than one register. In the United States, India, Canada and the United Arab Emirates the register is split by region, so the lookup needs the state or emirate as well as the country. Looking a Delaware company up in the wrong state returns a clean "not found" for a company that exists. If your flow serves these countries, collect the region explicitly.
A search hit mistaken for a verification
Many teams let applicants search for their company by name. That is good for usability, because many applicants do not know their registration number by heart. But a search result only shows that the register lists a similar name. It is a picker. The lookup on the chosen number is the check.
A worked example: two applications that pass the lookup
Consider two illustrative applications to a payments provider on the same morning.
A logistics company in Lagos. The registration number returns an active limited company registered six years ago, with three directors and two shareholders on file. The applicant is one of the named directors. The name on the form matches the registered name.
A trading company with the same kind of number. The lookup returns an active company registered two months ago, one director, and one shareholder that is another company. The applicant is not the named director. The form's trading name differs from the registered name.
Both are "verified" in the narrow sense: the register holds the number. Only the first gives you evidence on who is applying and who owns the business. The second needs the applicant's authority established, the corporate shareholder traced, and the name difference explained, before anyone approves it. A flow that treats both as a pass has learnt nothing from the second one.
How should you build the rest of the check?
Decide which gaps matter for your product and risk, then add the checks that close them. For most B2B fintechs and PSPs that means the following layers, in roughly this order.
Registry lookup by registration number, with the region where the register needs it.
Name and address comparison between what the applicant typed and what the register holds, routed to review on a mismatch rather than failed outright (trading names are common).
Applicant verification, so the person filling in the form completes their own identity check and is compared with the named officers.
Key people: directors, beneficial owners and significant shareholders, screened and, for the roles you choose, individually verified.
Company documents such as the certificate of incorporation, read and cross-checked against the register.
A decision that waits for the people checks rather than approving the moment the lookup returns.
How Myaza Trust handles the registry step
Business Verification runs registry lookups in 48 countries (listed on KYB coverage) by registration number, with tax ID and TIN products in Nigeria. It runs from a published KYB workflow, embedded in an SDK or sent as a hosted link, and applicants can search for their company by name before the lookup runs.
The result comes back by webhook as verified when the register returns a match or not_found when it does not, with an organisation-safe extract of the record: company particulars, share ownership and key personnel. The verification's own status is final as soon as the lookup finishes, and the onboarding decision arrives separately, so it can wait for the people behind the company. The business verification documentation lists the decision fields you can route on, including business.companyStatus, business.nameMatch, business.addressMatch and business.ageYears.
The decision rule
Approve on a registry lookup only when the product carries so little risk that "this company exists" is the whole question. For anything else, ask four questions before approval:
Did the register return a match, and is the record plausibly current (status, registration date, officers)?
Is the applicant someone the register names, and have they passed their own identity check?
Do you know who owns and controls the company, including through corporate shareholders?
Have the company and its people been screened?
If any answer is "no" or "not yet", the lookup has done its job and the application is not finished.
Sources
Charles Archibong
Co-founder
Charles Archibong co-founded Myaza Trust. He writes about identity verification, financial technology, and the practical work of building trusted digital services.
