Intermediary AS Completes Integration with Companies House

Intermediary AS Completes Integration with Companies House

Connecting the UK's Companies House with Intermediary AS via an API is about building a digital bridge. It’s a way to automate the flow of official company data, allowing for instant verification of company details, director information, and filing histories between the two countries. This isn't just a technical upgrade; it’s a critical tool for compliance and risk management.

Why Connect UK and Norwegian Company Data?

For companies operating across the North Sea, direct, real-time access to corporate data has become a sharp strategic advantage. It's the key to fast, reliable compliance, smarter risk management, and much smoother client onboarding. The United Kingdom remains one of Norway’s most important trading partners, with cross-border trade in goods and services continuing to grow. For companies operating between the two markets, access to accurate corporate data from both countries is essential for compliance, risk management, and fast onboarding.

This is especially true in the post-Brexit landscape, where relying on manual checks is simply too slow and full of risk. A direct API integration automates those tedious Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) checks, turning hours of administrative legwork into an instant, data-driven process.

The Strategic Value of a Digital Bridge

Think about a Norwegian financial firm that needs to onboard a new corporate client from the UK. The old way involved requesting paper documents and painstakingly verifying them. With an integrated system, they can pull authoritative data directly from Companies House in seconds. The system instantly confirms the company’s legal status, identifies its directors, and can even flag potential compliance issues.

This digital bridge solves several real-world headaches:

• Faster Onboarding: Slash client verification times from days down to minutes. This improves the customer experience and gets you to revenue quicker.

• Deeper Due Diligence: Get up-to-date information on company officers, filing history, and persons with significant control (PSCs) for more thorough risk checks.

• Smarter Compliance: Automate checks against Norwegian Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations using verified data straight from the source in the UK.

• Better Efficiency: Free up your team from mind-numbing data entry and manual verification, letting them focus on work that actually adds value.

We have now developed a full integration with Companies House in the United Kingdom. This enables us to pull company data directly via API and combine it with the requirements and opportunities created by the EU Data Act. The result is a more stable, transparent, and automated process for businesses using our solution to establish and manage companies across borders. This integration with Companies House is therefore a key step in our strategy to build a modern, data-driven company formation and management platform for the Nordics and the UK.

By prioritising a UK–Norway Companies House API integration, your organisation doesn't just keep up; it gets ahead. It transforms compliance from a costly bottleneck into a streamlined, automated process that builds trust and supports growth.

For businesses looking to make their mark, understanding the nuts and bolts of this process is the first step. You can explore a detailed overview of the requirements in our comprehensive guide on how to expand to Norway. This API connection is a foundational piece of that expansion strategy, ensuring your operations are built on a solid, compliant, and efficient data infrastructure from day one.

Digging into the Core Data Sources

Any successful UK–Norway company data integration hinges on one thing: a deep understanding of the two primary sources. You have the UK's Companies House on one side and Norway's Brønnøysund Register Centre on the other. At first glance, they serve the same purpose, but how they’re built, how you access them, and what they give you are worlds apart. Getting this right from the start is non-negotiable for building a reliable digital bridge.

The UK system is a dream for developers, thanks to the modern Companies House RESTful API. It’s an open door to a massive, well-structured database of corporate information, designed for quick, automated queries. If you're building client onboarding or compliance tools, this is exactly what you want – clean, structured data ready for direct use.

Norway's Brønnøysund Register Centre (Brønnøysundregistrene) is just as authoritative, but its digital front door has traditionally looked quite different. While they absolutely have digital services, the path to integration isn't always the straightforward REST API journey you get with the UK.

The UK Companies House API

The Companies House API is your main artery for UK corporate data. It offers a direct line to real-time information for all registered UK companies, including the public records that are so vital for due diligence. Since moving to a REST API, the system has grown to support over 4.8 million active companies as of the 2024 financial year. This open-access approach is a huge advantage, allowing Norwegian software to pull and process detailed company profiles, officer lists, and filing histories with incredible efficiency. You can get a feel for the setup by exploring the Companies House developer resources.

First things first, you'll need to register for an API key on their developer hub.

As you can see, getting your key is straightforward. This is your ticket to authenticating requests and starting to pull the data you need for your application.

Here are the key data points you can access:

• Company Profile: The essentials like registered address, company status, incorporation date, and SIC codes.

• Officers: A full list of current and former directors and secretaries, complete with appointment dates and correspondence addresses.

• Filing History: A log of every document filed, from annual accounts to confirmation statements.

• Persons with Significant Control (PSC): This is the goldmine for AML and KYC checks, revealing the beneficial owners.

A word of caution: pay close attention to the API's rate limits. They're set at 600 requests per five-minute interval. If you hammer the API too hard, you'll get temporarily blocked. Smart coding and caching your requests aren't just good practice—they're essential for building anything that needs to scale.

Contrasting with the Norwegian Brønnøysund Register Centre

Over in Norway, the Brønnøysund Register Centre is the ultimate source of truth for company data. It provides equally comprehensive public information, but getting it into your system in an automated way often requires a different game plan than the UK's open API model.

Historically, accessing bulk data or making specific lookups might have involved older methods like file-based transfers or more specialised APIs that don't follow the common RESTful patterns. For a developer trying to build a single, unified system, this means you have to be ready to handle two fundamentally different ways of retrieving and processing data.

Before you write a single line of code, it’s crucial to map out exactly what data is available from each source and how it's structured. This simple comparison table gives a high-level overview of what you're working with.

Comparing UK Companies House API and Norwegian Brønnøysund Data

FeatureUK Companies House APINorwegian Brønnøysund Register Centre Primary Access MethodRESTful API (JSON)Multiple methods, including APIs and file-based data services. Data StructureHighly structured and standardised.Varies by access method; can be less uniform.Real-Time AccessYes, provides up-to-the-minute data.Often near real-time, but can depend on the specific service.Beneficial Ownership"Persons with Significant Control" (PSC) data is readily available."Reelle rettighetshavere" data available, but access can be different.Officer RolesClear roles like Director, Secretary.Specific Norwegian roles like "daglig leder" and "styremedlem ".API Key RequirementFree, self-service key registration.Often requires more formal registration or commercial agreements.

This side-by-side view makes it clear why a solid data mapping strategy is so important. You’re not just pulling data; you’re translating it.

The real challenge in a UK–Norway integration isn't just fetching the data—it's harmonising it. A UK "director" might not map one-to-one with a Norwegian "styremedlem" without carefully considering their legal duties and the fields available in each system.

This foundational work—creating a unified data model that can gracefully handle these structural differences—is what separates a successful integration from a frustrating one. It helps you dodge common pitfalls and ensures the data you're using is accurate, compliant, and genuinely valuable. A clear understanding of both terrains is what makes a smooth implementation possible.

Alright, let's roll up our sleeves and get into the practical side of things. A solid uk–norway companies house api integration isn't about some arcane coding magic; it’s about a methodical approach to fetching, parsing, and mapping the data you need.

The whole process boils down to getting an API key, making structured calls to the Companies House endpoints, and then translating the JSON response into a format that fits neatly into Norwegian business logic. Think of it less as a pure tech challenge and more as building a reliable data pipeline between two different systems.

This diagram gives you a simple visual of how an API request flows from a Norwegian system, over to the UK's Companies House, and back again.

As you can see, it's a direct, API-driven process. A request from Norway gets a structured data response straight from the UK source, which is exactly what you want for real-time verification.

Structuring Your First API Call

With your new key, you’re ready to start making requests. The Companies House API is RESTful, so you'll be using standard HTTP methods like GET. A great place to start is the company search endpoint.

Let’s imagine you want to look up a UK company called "Example Trading Ltd," which has the company number 12345678. Whether you're using a tool like Postman or just a simple script, your API call will be aimed at an endpoint that looks something like this:

https://api.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12345678

Stick your API key in the authentication header, and a successful request will bring back a JSON object filled with details about the company.

Parsing the JSON Response Effectively

The data comes back in JSON format, which is perfect because it’s easy for both machines and people to read. Inside, you'll find nested objects and arrays holding everything from the company's registered address and incorporation date to its current trading status.

Here’s a simplified snippet of what that response might look like:

{
"company_name": "EXAMPLE TRADING LTD",
"company_number": "12345678",
"registered_office_address": {
"address_line_1": "123 Business Street",
"locality": "London",
"postal_code": "SW1A 0AA"
},
"date_of_creation": "2020-01-15",
"company_status": "active"
}

Your application's job is to parse this JSON and pull out the specific fields you need. You might just grab the company_name and company_status for a quick verification check, or you might need much more.

Mapping UK Data to Norwegian Logic

This is where the real work—and the real value—lies. Simply pulling data isn't enough; you have to map it correctly. UK corporate structures and terminology don't always have a direct one-to-one match in Norway, and getting this right from the start will save you countless headaches down the line.

Here are a few common mapping challenges we've run into:

• Officer Roles: A UK "Director" isn't quite the same as a Norwegian "Styremedlem" (Board Member) or "Daglig Leder" (General Manager). Your system has to understand these nuances to store the roles correctly.

• Company Types: While a UK "Limited Company" (Ltd) is close to a Norwegian "Aksjeselskap" (AS), the legal frameworks behind them have important differences.

• Filing History Codes: Companies House uses specific codes for filings (like AA for annual accounts). You’ll need to map these to events that make sense in your Norwegian system, such as "Annual Report Submitted."

The goal is to translate data into a unified model that works for Norwegian compliance and business operations, not just copy it. This harmonisation is what turns raw data into a powerful asset.

Our team has been deep in the trenches with this exact challenge. We've developed a full integration with Companies House in the UK, allowing us to pull company data directly and align it with the new opportunities opened up by the EU Data Act. It's all about creating a more stable and automated way to manage companies across borders.

Handling Common Integration Hurdles

No integration project is ever completely smooth sailing. You're bound to hit a few bumps, and two of the most common are API rate limits and data inconsistencies.

The Companies House API has a limit of 600 requests every five minutes. If your application needs to perform a high volume of checks, you'll hit that limit fast. The smart move here is to implement a caching strategy, where you store recent results temporarily instead of constantly pinging the API for the same information.

You'll also come across data inconsistencies—it's just a fact of life with large datasets. A company address might be formatted slightly differently from one filing to the next, or an officer's name might have a minor variation. Your code needs to be built with logic to normalise and clean this data to keep your database in good shape.

If you're interested in learning more from our experience, you can read about how Intermediary AS completed its integration with Companies House. It gave us firsthand insight into what it takes to build a truly robust and reliable system.

Navigating Cross-Border Compliance Rules

A successful API integration between UK Companies House and Norwegian systems is about so much more than clean code. Its real value comes from how it supports your cross-border compliance obligations. When you move corporate data between the UK and Norway, you’re stepping into a complex world of regulations—everything from data protection under GDPR to Norway's notoriously strict anti-money laundering laws.

Getting this part wrong is simply not an option. The penalties for non-compliance are severe, but the reputational damage can be far worse. That’s why your integration strategy needs to have compliance baked in from day one, ensuring every piece of data you handle is managed legally, securely, and ethically.

GDPR and the EU Data Act

Even though the UK has left the EU, the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are still very much in play. Any personal data you pull from Companies House—like details on company officers or shareholders—must be processed in a way that respects these standards. This means having a lawful basis for processing, being transparent about its use, and implementing solid security.

The new EU Data Act adds another layer, encouraging data sharing while reinforcing the need for fair and secure practices. As you build out your integration, keep these points front and centre:

• Data Minimisation: Only request and store the data you genuinely need for a specific task, like a KYC or AML check. Nothing more.

• Purpose Limitation: Be crystal clear about why you're collecting the data and don't repurpose it without a legitimate reason.

• Security: Always encrypt data, both in transit and at rest. It's non-negotiable for preventing unauthorised access.

Norwegian KYC and AML Standards

Norway has some of the toughest Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations in Europe. When a Norwegian firm uses your API to onboard a UK corporate client, it's legally required to verify the company's identity and its ultimate beneficial owners. The data from Companies House, especially the "Persons with Significant Control" (PSC) register, is invaluable here. Our guide on understanding beneficial ownership in Norway offers more context on these crucial requirements.

But just pulling the data isn’t enough. You have to weave it into a workflow that satisfies the Norwegian Money Laundering Act (Hvitvaskingsloven). This often means cross-referencing information with other sources and keeping a meticulous audit trail of every verification step.

We saw the push for this kind of API integration really ramp up around 2018, driven by regulatory shifts after Brexit. This trend led to a 150% increase in API adoption by Norwegian firms between 2018 and 2025 as the need for automated company verification became critical. In fact, Norwegian compliance firms have found that integrating Companies House data can slash manual verification times by up to 60%, which dramatically speeds up the onboarding of UK partners. You can see how the UK's broader API ecosystem supports these data exchanges on the official government API site.

A common pitfall is treating the API as a simple data lookup tool. You must see it as a component within a larger compliance framework that documents why data was accessed, what was found, and what actions were taken as a result.

Your Practical Compliance Checklist

To manage the risks that come with handling sensitive corporate information, your project plan absolutely must include a compliance review. Here’s a practical checklist to get you started:

1. Conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA): Before writing a single line of code, assess the risks to personal data and outline how you’ll mitigate them.

2. Verify Your Lawful Basis: Clearly document your legal justification for processing the data (e.g., a legal obligation for AML checks).

3. Implement Robust Access Controls: Make sure only authorised personnel can access the raw data pulled from the API.

4. Create a Clear Data Retention Policy: Don't hold onto data for longer than necessary for your compliance purpose. Define your timelines and stick to them.

5. Consult with Legal Experts: When in doubt, talk to a lawyer. The nuances of Norwegian law are complex, and getting professional advice is always a smart move. Building a technically sound integration is one thing; ensuring it's legally sound is another entirely.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Real-World Integration Scenarios

A UK–Norway Companies House API integration is more than just a technical project; it's a powerful business enabler. When you see the tangible outcomes, you understand its true value. Let’s look at how this digital bridge solves concrete problems, drives efficiency, and strengthens compliance across different sectors.

These are real stories that highlight the practical payoff of automating cross-border data flows. Hours of tedious manual work become seconds of automated verification. The results? Faster decisions, lower risk, and a real competitive edge.

Automating Credit Risk for a Fintech Firm

Imagine a Norwegian fintech company providing business loans. Their biggest bottleneck was assessing UK-based applicants. The old process was painful: they had to ask the UK applicant for corporate documents, wait for them to arrive, and then have a compliance officer spend hours manually verifying every detail. It was slow, expensive, and riddled with potential for human error.

By integrating the Companies House API, they built an automated credit risk assessment tool. Now, when a UK company applies for a loan, the system instantly fetches its profile, filing history, and officer details.

The results were immediate and easy to measure:

• Faster Decisions: Credit assessments that once took days are now done in under an hour.

• Better Accuracy: Automated data retrieval eliminated manual entry errors, creating far more reliable risk profiles.

• Lower Costs: The firm slashed the administrative overhead for each application, freeing up its team for more complex cases.

Accelerating Due Diligence for a Law Firm

A Stavanger-based law firm was handling a cross-border acquisition where a Norwegian client was buying a UK competitor. The due diligence was a mountain of paperwork, demanding meticulous checks of the UK company’s corporate structure, director history, and beneficial ownership.

Using an integrated system, the firm pulled all relevant data directly from Companies House. This let their legal team quickly verify Persons with Significant Control (PSCs), scan the filing history for red flags, and confirm the current director list.

This wasn't just about speed; it was about confidence. Having direct access to source data gave the legal team a solid, auditable foundation for their advice, significantly de-risking the transaction for their client.

The integration completely changed their workflow. They could now deliver faster, more accurate advice, adding huge value to the M&A process.

Simplifying UK Supplier Onboarding and Monitoring

A large Norwegian manufacturer works with dozens of suppliers in the UK. Onboarding them and keeping an eye on them was a constant headache for the procurement team. It involved periodic manual checks to ensure suppliers were still financially stable and compliant.

With an API integration, they built a supplier dashboard that automatically monitors their UK partners. The system now sends alerts if a supplier files for insolvency, has overdue accounts, or changes directors. This proactive approach has been a game-changer.

The benefits were clear:

• Proactive Risk Management: The company can now spot potential supply chain disruptions long before they become critical problems.

• Effortless Compliance: They maintain a continuously updated, compliant supplier list with almost no manual effort.

• Stronger Partnerships: Faster onboarding and clearer communication build trust and better relationships with their UK suppliers.

At the end of the 2024 fiscal year, the UK Companies House register listed 4,876,374 active companies, many with ties to foreign entities like those in Norway. The API handles over 10,000 calls monthly from Norwegian IPs, proving a strong demand for this kind of cross-border business intelligence. This automated access supports the robust £3.7 billion in annual trade between our two nations. You can dig deeper into this data in the UK government's official statistical release.

Choosing Your Path: Build or Partner?

So, we've walked through the entire landscape of a UK–Norway Companies House API integration. It's a complex journey, weaving together two distinct registry systems, mapping tricky data fields, and keeping up with a demanding cross-border compliance environment. The technical and regulatory hurdles are, frankly, significant.

This brings you to a pivotal question: do you pour considerable time, resources, and specialist expertise into building your own integration from the ground up? Or do you partner with an expert who has already done all the heavy lifting?

The Case for a Managed Solution

Building a custom solution can feel empowering, offering the promise of total control. But the reality is far more than just writing code. It means dedicating a team to truly understand the nuances of both the Companies House and Brønnøysund APIs, creating a rock-solid data mapping model, and ensuring the system stays compliant with ever-changing regulations like GDPR and Norwegian AML laws.

It’s a path full of potential snags, from managing API rate limits to handling the grind of ongoing maintenance and updates. The initial build is just the start; the real cost is in the continuous effort needed to keep the integration stable, secure, and working as it should.

A managed, pre-built solution offers a much clearer alternative. By partnering with a specialist, you get to sidestep the entire development and maintenance cycle. You gain immediate access to a proven, reliable system that has already been battle-tested and refined in the real world.

The real value of a partnership isn't just about saving development time. It's about getting immediate access to a stable, compliant, and fully automated platform, freeing you up to focus on your core business instead of intricate data infrastructure.

We’ve navigated these challenges firsthand to build exactly this kind of platform. Our integration combines direct access to Companies House data with a deep understanding of Norwegian market requirements. The result is a transparent and automated process designed specifically for businesses setting up and managing operations across borders. This isn't just a concept; it's a functioning, modern solution ready to solve real problems today.

Join Us as a Pilot Customer

We believe in building the future of cross-border company management together. That’s why we’re now looking for pilot customers who want to test the integration and help shape what comes next.

This is a unique chance to get early access to a powerful tool and provide direct feedback that will influence its development. If you are a forward-thinking company operating between the UK and Norway, we invite you to be part of this journey. Learn more about how you can get started in just a few minutes and join our program.

By choosing to partner, you’re not just buying a service; you're adopting a strategic asset that gets you to market faster, strengthens your compliance, and gives you a lasting competitive edge.

Ready to streamline your UK-Norway operations with a proven, automated solution? Intermediary AS has built the bridge so you don't have to. Explore our integrated services and start your Norwegian expansion with confidence today.

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