The LSE Directory / Fundamental data
Creditsafe is a privately owned business intelligence company that sells company credit reports, credit scores and risk-monitoring data through an online platform and API. Its database covers more than 430 million businesses globally, combining company registry filings, financial statements, director and shareholder records, payment behaviour and compliance data sourced from thousands of registries and data providers across the countries it operates in. Customers use the data for credit risk assessment, supplier and customer onboarding, KYC and AML screening, and ongoing portfolio monitoring. The company was founded in Oslo, Norway in 1997 with the aim of making business credit information affordable and instantly accessible online to small and mid-sized businesses, a segment that traditional credit bureaus underserved at the time. It expanded market by market from Scandinavia into the UK in 2000 (relocating its UK operations to Caerphilly, South Wales in 2002), then into France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the United States (2012), Italy, Japan (2016) and India, later adding Canada, Denmark, and Austria and Luxembourg. Its main UK operating entity, Creditsafe Business Solutions Limited, is registered in Cardiff. In 2026 the company said it was extending beyond business credit into UK consumer credit, building on products it already runs in Norway and Sweden. Cato Syversen, Norwegian born and a graduate of Oslo University, has led the group as CEO since taking on group-wide responsibility in 2006 after running its UK growth from 2000. In March 2022, Creditsafe acquired Graydon, a roughly 135 year old B2B information provider and the long-standing market leader in the Netherlands and Belgium with a UK presence, from insurer Atradius; financial terms were not disclosed. Creditsafe describes itself as privately owned and reports a customer base above 200,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 employees across offices in Europe, North America and Asia; it has not disclosed external investor or ownership details. As of its 2026 UK consumer credit push, Creditsafe is positioning its existing commercial product Verify, which pairs consumer level insight with company data on business owners, as the bridge into that new market, alongside tools it calls Data Studio (for blending proprietary and client data) and its decision-engine and AI-ready datasets. CEO Cato Syversen has framed the move as a natural extension of a nearly 30 year old business credit franchise rather than a pivot away from it.
