The UAE’s move to digitize corporate records: What it means for data access

The UAE's move to digitize corporate records, with initiatives like the Know Your Customer (KYC) digital platform and the establishment of the Abu Dhabi Registration and Licensing Authority (ADRA), marks a significant shift in how business data is managed and accessed. These developments are intended to streamline business registration processes, enhance financial transparency and attract investment to the emirate.

Given that these initiatives could impact how we access public information on entities registered in the UAE, I thought it would be helpful to share what we know so far:

• The new KYC platform, launched in late 2024, focuses on improving the banking sector by enhancing identity verification, increasing transparency, and tackling financial crime. It centralizes the collection, storage, analysis, and sharing of KYC data under the supervision of the UAE's Central Bank. This platform could potentially alter how business and financial data is accessed, but its full impact on public data availability is still uncertain.
  
  
• ADRA, launched in early 2025, oversees the registration of businesses in Abu Dhabi, including non-financial economic free zones. The authority's central aim is to ensure businesses comply with UAE laws and streamline the licensing process. ADRA’s plan to create a unified database for businesses operating in both mainland and free zones will centralise business data, but it remains unclear how this will affect global data access.
  
  
• The National Economic Registry (NER) – Growth, launched in October 2024, is the UAE's unified business license database. It integrates processes and requirements across all seven emirates and is accessible to UAE nationals and residents. The NER serves as a critical source of business data but may also limit how this information is accessed internationally.

Potential impact on data access
For firms like Diligencia that specialise in providing entity data and due diligence solutions, the biggest question is how these changes will affect international access to registry data. Will data continue to be available globally, or will access be restricted to local entities? While this decision remains unclear, you can be confident that Diligencia will continue gathering and curating data from the UAE, ensuring clients continue to receive the information they need.