Frequently asked questions

You need to be a registered user to access all of the information hosted on ClarifiedBy.com. Please contact us to discuss which package would be most relevant to your needs. We have a range of contract options available to corporate clients, and these can be tailored according to the size and type of organisation, and its estimated data usage. Alternatively, if you do not wish to commit to a contract then visit our plans page and select one of the pay as you go options which meets your needs.

You can get a trial by clicking "Request a trial" from the menu bar. You will need to complete a form verifying your name, work email address and company name. Once your details have been verified by our processing team you can expect someone to get in touch to arrange setting it up for you at a convenient time.

We want the facts presented on ClarifiedBy.com to help inform decisions, affirm relationships and ultimately support the economies we serve. That can only be fully achieved with the consent and collaboration of all the partners in our community. For that reason we ask organisations in our community to contribute data in order to access our information – in this case we ask for certain key details about your company which allows you to view information on our site during the demonstration. If we are unable to authenticate the information you provide, your demo request will be declined.

ClarifiedBy.com is a data resource and exchange for organisations in the Middle East and Africa, and we ask users to share details about them and their companies in order to access our existing data. If you are an individual, you can still subscribe to our service – please contact us.

Yes, we have an API available for high volume data retrieval. Please contact us to find out more.

The data on ClarifiedBy.com comes from Diligencia Group’s databases, covering public & private organisations and individuals across Africa and the wider Middle East. All the information on ClarifiedBy.com is derived from official sources in each country that we work in, including ministries, regulatory authorities, chambers of commerce and official gazettes. The only exception to this is where contact information (organisation website or telephone numbers) is either missing or out of date on official records. This sourcing methodology is very important to us and allows us to provide truly authentic, reliable and accurate information on these regions. Read more about our research methodology.

ClarifiedBy.com provides access to information on more than 20 million profiles with additional profiles being added to the platform at the rate of around 1,500 per week, so coverage is constantly increasing. We publish both full and partial organisation profiles on ClarifiedBy.com. Full profiles pass our own minimum criteria for comprehensiveness, whereas partial profiles do not but should reveal enough information so you can decide whether an update is required to give the detail you need.

We specialise in providing information on countries in the Middle East and Africa only. We cover Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine (State of), Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

We offer extended geographical coverage and work in partnership with AsiaVerify  to provide access to real-time, primary source registry information for companies registered in the following APAC countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Our information is available in the official language of record for each country we work in (Arabic in much of the region) as well as the English transliteration or French/Portuguese in some African countries. Please note that our information is always based on the official records and English transliterations can vary. If in any doubt, always use the Arabic version as the definitive spelling.

Our information is not (nor do we claim it to be) 100% complete across the Middle East and Africa. This is partly because countries in the MEA region operate different disclosure laws (e.g., in South Africa, it is not a requirement for all companies to disclose who their owners are). In addition, several countries in the region do not publish their company registries electronically, therefore much of our information is based on records that have been individually retrieved and manually curated. We publish both full (Gold) and partial (Silver and Bronze) organisation profiles. Full (Gold) organisation profiles pass our own minimum criteria for fullness (for example they must have all key registry data, including directors and shareholders). Even so, the Holdings section may not be 100% complete as it may be based on the results of our previous research. Partial (Silver) profiles, as the name suggests do not meet our minimum criteria but should reveal enough information to help establish the relevance of that profile to your needs. In both instances you can request an update at any time.

The information on our database is kept up to date by our team of analysts and researchers in the UK and Morocco. We decide which organisations to update based on user activity (use of Updates), proactive research of large/high profile organisations, and monitoring of regional press and gazettes. On occasion we also integrate large existing datasets that are available from government authorities in the region.

Service Credits allow users to request updates to organisation​/person profiles they have found on ClarifiedBy.com or to order a search for an organisation​/person in the Middle East or African countries that they have not been able to find on our site. This means that we will retrieve the latest information on record from the relevant authority, a process that typically takes 3-10 working days depending on the jurisdiction. The type of membership package determines how many Updates and Views each member company is entitled to.

In the first instance please contact your company’s budget holder or administrator (you can find a list of nominated administrators on “Your company” page) and ask them to recharge your organisation’s Service Credits.

If you are an enterprise member, ask the administrator or budget holder within your organisation to order more ClarifiedBy.com Service Credits.

A View allows users to look at an unlocked profile on ClarifiedBy.com. We record your data usage and will deduct one View from your account each time a user unlocks a profile from the summary page. An unlocked View entitles users to look at every section of that organisation or person profile as many times as they like within a 30 day period.

If you are looking at the same profile within 30 days of your initial unlock, that will not count as another View. If you access the same profile more than 30 days after your initial unlock it will show as being locked. You will need to unlock it again; a further View will be deducted from your company’s account and the 30 day access countdown will then be restarted. You may also find the ‘Download PDF’ feature useful for saving the information you have already viewed.

The date on which access to your unlocked profile ends is clearly displayed on the profile. You can see the information in the top right-hand corner of all tabs in the format of “UNLOCKED until xx/xx/20xx”.

If you are an enterprise member, ask the administrator or budget holder within your organisation to order more ClarifiedBy.com Views. Alternatively, you can visit our pricing page and choose one of the options available and pay by credit card.

Organisations are categorised as Gold for a full profile; Silver for a viewable partial profile and Bronze for a locked partial profile which cannot be accessed without an update.

A partial profile does not meet our minimum criteria for fullness so may not have all key registry data, including directors and people (shareholders). However, from search results they should reveal enough information to help establish the relevance of that profile to your needs. There are two types of partial profiles - viewable (Silver) and locked (Bronze). A viewable (Silver) partial profile can be accessed if you feel it meets your requirements, while a locked (Bronze) partial profile cannot be accessed and requires an update to be requested before you can get more information.

Our person (shareholder) profiles reveal detailed information from basic personal data (such as gender and nationality), to all the publicly known holdings and management positions a person has with known organisations across the region. This information can be visualised and navigated using the interactive network diagrams. Only registered users who are logged in can search and view person profiles.

The directorships/shareholdings shown in the results of a person search in ClarifiedBy.com are often made up of several different corporate filings or data uploads entered into the database over a period of time. Because of this there is not a single “last updated” date we can assign to the person’s profile as it is not necessarily a search based on their name at a specific time. If up to date information is required in a particular jurisdiction you can request an update via the site so we can investigate the most recent changes.

Holdings, or shareholdings, are stakes in other entities that a person or organisation owns.

Network diagrams help you navigate connections between organisations or individuals.

For organisations, you can select to view the associated holdings and owners, combined or separately. For individuals, we show holdings information only.

You can choose to view both direct and/or indirect relationships and use the percentage scales to select the level of investment you’re most interested in. Any investment greater than or equal to 50% is shown as a black arrow; investments under 50% are shown in grey; and unknown/0% as a dashed line. The organisation or individual that you’ve searched for is easily identified as a green icon.

UBO Explorer is an interactive diagram that reveals known ownership of organisations and their affiliations. It helps you investigate corporate ownership structures and individuals’ shareholdings to help determine the Ultimate Beneficial Owner.

Affiliates are other holdings that an organisation’s owner or shareholder owns.

Add-ons provide users with access to extra features on ClarifiedBy.com. They include products such as Family Offices and Ruling Families and can be bought in isolation or as part of an annual subscription.

Folders provide a way for Administrators to enter their company-own project references on ClarifiedBy.com. Administrators can create a unique reference word or number which can be used by users when they unlock a profile or order an Update. The reference word or number is known as a folder on our system and can be assigned to multiple Views or Updates. It helps clients reconcile the amount spent on their projects. Watch the video

If you are a Basic or View only user and cannot see your project reference in the folder dropdown, please ask one of your company administrators to add the unique reference to ClarifiedBy.com. You can find a list of all your Administrators in “Your company” in the Company details tab.

There are several ways in which you can search for an organisation – you can enter the organisation name in the search box, or alternatively you can enter the trading name or the Diligencia ID. Where the Diligencia ID is entered correctly it will display as the only result on the Search Results Page.

Yes, you can enter your search terms in Arabic on ClarifiedBy.com.

We use pattern match to handle our search function. This means that search results will still be returned even if you are not sure of the precise name of your target search or do not enter the search term in the correct order. It also doesn’t matter if you use capitalisation, sentence case or lower-case text.

The wildcard is an advanced search technique that can be used to maximize your search results on ClarifiedBy.com. Wildcards are used in single search terms to represent one or more other characters.

The two most used wildcards are:

• A question mark (?) may be used to represent a single character, anywhere in the word. It is most useful when there are variable spellings for a word, and you want to search for all variants at once.
  • For example, searching for Habto?r would return both Habtoor and Habtour.
• An asterisk (*) may be used to specify multiple characters. It is typically used at the end of a root word ( known as "truncation"). This is really useful when you want to search for variable endings of a root word.
  • For example: searching for industr* would tell the database to look for all possible endings to that root. Results include industry, industries, or industrial.

A fuzzy search is a way of broadening the parameters of a search if you don’t know the exact name or spelling of what you are looking for. Arabic names can sometimes be transliterated into English in several different ways, so we have designed the fuzzy search to help you find the result you are looking for, even if you have spelt it slightly differently to us. Use the slider to customise the level of fuzziness from exact match (low) to fuzzy (high).

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. Search supports OR and NOT as Boolean operators (note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).
OR
The OR operator matches names where either terms exist anywhere in the text of a single name.
To search for names that contain "oil gas" or "petrol*" use the query:
"oil gas" OR "petrol*"
NOT
The NOT operator is used to exclude a specific term from the search.
To search for names that contain “Industries” but not “pharmaceutical” use the query:
“industries” NOT “pharmaceutical”

Use quote marks to search for an exact phrase. Example: “investment company”

ClarifiedBy.com allows you to filter your search results by Status, Sector, Country and City, refining the number of results shown. You can quickly tick the relevant boxes to apply the necessary filters. All applied filters will show as buttons at the top and can be easily reset by clicking the ‘x’ to dismiss. As you filter you will notice the results figures on the top right side of the screen will adjust accordingly. Your original search results number (on the left side of the screen) remains unchanged until such times as you change your search terms and start a new search.

It is likely this will happen to you at some point because our information is not (nor do we claim it to be) 100% comprehensive across the Middle East and African countries. If you cannot find an organisation/person that you are looking for, please contact us so we can undertake a search under the name you provide. We would ask that you provide as many details as you can. For organisations include the full name and where you think it is registered; and for people the full name and country of residence. For subscribers/users this would require the use of 1 Update.

The year in which each organisation profile was last updated is always clearly visible on ClarifiedBy.com to users. If you require more up to date information simply click the ‘Order an update’ button to the right of the page and confirm that you wish to use 1 Update towards this. Our team will then deliver a report to you typically within 3-5 working days.

Some corporate registries only require individual managers and shareholders to declare their year of birth. Our system displays dates in a dd MMM yyyy format and allocates the 1st January for anyone with only a year of birth on record.

Yes, select the ‘Download PDF’ button (top right-hand corner) and a PDF including all the information displayed in the profile will be downloaded. You can then print and/or save the document.

Monitor automates your Know Your Customer (KYC) monitoring process to maintain customer records within pre-agreed refresh cycles.

Organisations that you select to monitor via their online profile pages on ClarifiedBy.com will be updated in 12-month fresh cycles.

If you provide us with a list of entities that you need monitoring, specify your preferred review cycles (3,6 or 12 months) then we will add them to your monitored list.

Yes, you can update a profile at any time in the cycle by clicking ‘Order’ via the Action column in the Monitoring dashboard.  It will cost one Update.

Yes, simply go to the organisation profile that you wish to add and click on the ‘Start monitoring’ button. 

A profile will be monitored for the period of your subscription or until you delete the entity from the list of monitored entities on your dashboard.

Email notifications will be sent if we uncover significant changes to a monitored entity in between refresh cycles.  They include changes to the organisation name, registration number, legal entity identifier, registered address, city of registration, country of registration, status, legal form, capital, ownership, ownership shareholding percentages, management, management positions, regulators and addition of a SOE flag.  

The Compliance add-on builds on the verified and curated data available on ClarifiedBy.com. We work with ComplyAdvantage to deliver data which helps you manage risk, make informed decisions and be compliant when working with third parties. The data assists your checks for sanctions, political exposure and adverse media.

As part of our search results we also display if no sanctions, adverse media and PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) have been found. You will be able to see information related to your search in the Compliance tab for a period of 30 days after the original profile unlock. Watch the video

Adverse media is provided as a summary of negative news articles with links to the publications. The data is sourced worldwide from over 200 countries and territories.

Yes, ClarifiedBy.com will highlight if no sanctions, adverse media and PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) have been found.

Your search may return more results than you expect. This is due to possible differences in name formats and spellings that exist between our database and our third-party sources.

At present it is not possible to remediate the data delivered to our platform (via ComplyAdvantage). You can download your compliance search results in a date stamped PDF report.

You will be able to see your search results in the Compliance tab for a period of 30 days after the original profile unlock.

A state-owned enterprise is an organisation which is either fully or partially owned by a state or government.  Understanding who you are really doing business with helps minimise potential regulatory and reputational risk.

SOE diagrams are interactive diagrams that help you explore organisation connections to governments in the Middle East and Africa.  We identify known SOEs held within our database and provide connections, of up to 6 degrees away, to one or more governments operating within the 75 jurisdictions covered on ClarifiedBy.com.

SOE diagrams are found within the State-ownership tab in Visuals and they can be adjusted by changing either the degrees of separation or states selected.  The degrees of separation are preset to 6 degrees away from the state and can be changed to anything between 1 and 6 using the slider.  Always remember to ‘redraw’ the diagram to get the updated version.  

Yes, the language on the diagram can be changed from English to Arabic.

It sounds like your company has not purchased the SOE add-on if you cannot see anything displayed on the State-ownership tab in Visuals.  Please speak to your company’s administrator (you can find a list of active administrators on the “Your company” page) and ask them to contact us to discuss adding State-Owned Enterprises to your contract.

"Your account" is your personalised area which shows the profiles you have visited chronologically (Visited profiles), the Updates you have ordered (Update usage history), any relevant online purchases of Views or Updates (Purchase history) and Your details.

"Your company" provides details on your company account only. Note if you are an administrator you will be able to see tabs related to your company’s Transaction and Purchase history as well as having the ability to Manage users.

If you forget your password, select “Forgot password” at log in where you will be prompted to enter your email address. Pressing “Send reset email” will trigger an automated email with a link to reset your password (the link expires after an hour has elapsed).

Yes, you can have as many company administrators as you wish but the minimum is always one.

If you are not an administrator but would like to be, then please ask one of your company administrators to grant permission and make this change to your profile. You can find a list of all your administrators in "Your company" in the Company details tab.

You can view profile transactions with an assigned folder in the View and Update Usage History tabs in “Your account”. Folders are included in the usage history tables.

If you are an administrator, you can edit and update this information by accessing the “Company details” tab in “Your company” and selecting “Edit company details”.

All your company’s View and Update usage can be found in "Your company > "Transaction history". The data can be filtered and is shown by date ordered; V (Views); U (Updates); T (Type = Organisation or Person); Subject; Jurisdiction; User and Ref#. It is also possible to download this information using the \'download as CSV\' button.

As an administrator you can see the online purchases of View and Updates made by all users within your company by viewing “Your company”, “Purchase history”. The data is ordered chronologically and can be filtered to achieve the view you wish to have displayed.

As an administrator you can manage users in the following way: update their user name, email address, role or active status. You can edit anything on the Manage User page which is in blue font. There are prompts which guide you through the process clearly.

Administrators can add new users easily via “Manage users”, “Add user”. Simply complete the mandatory fields. The new user will receive an email asking them to confirm their ClarifiedBy.com account. They should use the link within this email to set their password. Once the password is set they will be able to access the site.

No, it is not possible to delete a user as this would remove all their View and transaction history from your company account. To provide you with a complete record of all user’s activity, we instead provide the option to make users inactive. To make a user inactive, please select “Make inactive” in Manage users. Making a user inactive takes immediate effect and disables their permission to log in to ClarifiedBy.com.

Yes, you can reactivate a user by taking the action to “Make active” in Manage users.

You can add your company project references by going to the “Manage folders” tab in “Your company”. Please enter your unique reference (up to a maximum of 25 characters) in the text box and then press the add folder button.

A table is included in "Manage Folders" showing the Views and Updates total by folder. You can use the download csv options in the Transaction History tab to view the details for all transactions.