Expanding Our International Data to Latin America & Caribbean

And now, we can give you access to business credit reports in 37 additional countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean via our website and API. This means we now have over 430 million business reports across over 200 countries and territories.

At Creditsafe, it’s our mission to power your decisions with actionable, trusted data on companies worldwide. With the increased trade and imports in these regions, you can rest assured that you’ll have the right credit risk and compliance data so you can make the right decisions for your business.

The addition of these countries is part of our larger international data strategy. When we launched as a global credit monitoring and risk intelligence provider 25 years ago, we had a clear vision: to give businesses access to the right data so they could make more informed decisions and protect themselves from financial, legal and compliance risks. We’ve been fortunate enough to see our business grow during that time.

One thing that has always been at the top of our priority list is to make sure we have the most robust and reliable data. And this expansion into the Latin American and Caribbean markets lets us do just that.

We wanted to give you a full rundown of what regions have been added, what type of information is included in the reports and why this market is so important.

What’s the breakdown of countries added in each region?

• Caribbean: 20 countries added
• Latin America: 16 countries added
• Other Region (Fiji): 1 country added

What type of information can be found in these reports?

• Company registration details
• Credit scores and credit limits
• Director information
• Group structure information
• Financial statements (where available)

Why this market is so important?

• Historically, it’s been difficult to access reliable data on businesses in the region. So, we’ve seen a massive surge in requests for companies to be researched and verified locally through our fresh investigation service.

• Latin America and the Caribbean’s total imports increased at an estimated rate of 26.3% in 2022.

• From multinational makers of clothing to consumer electronics, companies are reassessing their sources of raw materials, parts and factory assembling following the pandemic. That means countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are becoming go-to places in the global supply chain as businesses shift away from China.

• Mexico is enticing some companies because its goods can enter the United States duty-free under trade agreement rules.

• Brazil also makes sense for companies that need its natural resources (i.e. ore, petroleum) or that sell cars to its market of 212 million people.

The world of commerce has undergone a profound transformation in the past 15 years, surpassing any previous period of change. Emerging from the depths of the global financial crisis, the world was then hit by the full strength of the COVID-19 pandemic, which not only disrupted the demand for essential products but also wrought havoc on global supply chains. Despite initial concerns about economic shrinkage, global trade has defied the odds and more than doubled during this period, reaching an impressive $32 trillion in 2022.

But 2023 presents new challenges amid an economic storm characterized by escalating and persistent inflation, rising interest rates, mounting bankruptcies and a sharp decline in consumer spending. According to our recent study, 85% of businesses are paid late by their customers. On top of that, 28% of businesses expect to rack up between $500,000 and $3 million in debt over the next 6 to 12 months. Is it any wonder that nearly two-thirds (64%) of business leaders believe the recession will have a moderate to severe impact on their business?

We’ve consistently been at the forefront of data sourcing, data cleaning and data management. Through a combination of sourcing data from official registries, third-party partnerships in our home markets and the establishment of the Creditsafe Commercial Data Network comprising of over 30 international data partners, we’ve been able to meet the increasing demand for high-quality international data and insights that businesses need to survive and grow long-term.

In the past 12 months alone, we’ve made significant investments to improve our data in Brazil, China, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Spain. And we’re currently enhancing our data for Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand – that’s on top of the latest launch of instant online reports for 37 new territories in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Our guiding principle is to empower data-driven decisions anywhere in the world. While we take pride in holding one of the world's largest databases, with over 430 million reports, our greatest pride lies in the quality of the data contained within them.

The Creditsafe Commercial Data Network is a data cooperative of sorts – essentially, it’s a network that brings together business information from market leaders across the globe into a single source. Within the database, business data is validated, standardized and connected. Together, the data offers greater value and potential than if it were separated across disparate structures. The level of participation and data sharing of each partner varies. But the more a partner shares in the network, the higher benefits they themselves get.

“What makes us different from our market competitors is that we don’t just buy data from our partners, it isn’t just a transactional exchange between two parties.” said Paul Beard, International Business Director. “We look after the growth and success of our data partners and so do they. We share revenue with them, give them access to the Creditsafe product suite and at times, enhance the quality and uniformity of their data.” 

Despite a growing network, entry for new partners isn’t an open door. Partners are subject to a highly rigorous selection process so we can be confident about data accuracy, freshness, completeness and breadth. Partners also need to be of a similar mindset: collaborative, ambitious and customer-obsessed.

Although the Network acts like a behind-the-scenes mechanism, it delivers real value in the form of reduced customer and supplier risks, stronger cash flow, better regulatory compliance and increased revenue growth.

In recent years, the benefits are particularly evident in Creditsafe’s coveted global group structure data. The increased contribution of corporate linkages and hierarchical data from our partners has expanded the footprint and completeness of this dataset dramatically. In the first half of this year, we’ve increased the total number of unique corporate groups in our database by a staggering 15%.

Similarly, the international coverage of our monitoring and data enrichment services is broadening thanks to the Network, which allows us to deploy the data in more ways than simply delivering reports.

“We pride ourselves on being transparent about the data we hold, from the breadth and depth of data we offer in each territory to the details of our credit scores,” said Howard Roberts, Product Director at Creditsafe. “It’s important that our clients trust us and the data we offer – and you achieve that by being open. In an industry that’s ‘guarded’ about its data, we’ve been able to breathe fresh air into it and that has been well received by our customers.”