Five leading players in the field of business information have joined their joined forces in the new Association for Business B2B Information. This industry association aims to set up and monitor joint quality standards and representing the collective interests of business information providers in the Netherlands. Maintaining good access to business information, privacy and legal certainty are the key issues in this respect.
“The first major focus for the association is to prevent the Trade Register from beinglocked ” said Rob Veneboer, chairman of the Association for Business B2B Information. ” Indeed, the accessibility of the Chamber of Commerce ‘ s Trade Register is of great importance. Not only for properly fulfilling our proven role in economic transactions, but also to ensure legal certainty within business contracts in general.”
Business intelligence as a basis for reliable doing business
Every day, tens of thousands of companies use credit- and other business information. This type of information forms the basis in numerous essential business processes, including for assessing risks when entering into a business relationship. For example, by understanding a company ‘ s creditworthiness or group structure and stakeholders. Veneboer: “Especially with the corona crisis creating great uncertainties and discontinuity, it is extra important for entrepreneurs to be sure they can do business reliably.” Business information specialists deliver these insights by structuring and analysing public trade information and enriching it with information from many other sources and in-house developed dataintelligence.
Powerful platform on behalf of the industry
Altares Dun & Bradstreet, CreditDevice, Creditsafe, Company.info and Graydon, the leading players in the market, have now united in the new industry association. With the association, the market players form a powerful platform to protect the quality of the sector.
Among other things, we are developing quality standards and a privacy code of conduct. This will ensure a uniform, high-level privacy policy.”
Monopolisation trade register
The association also acts as the official interlocutor on behalf of the industry for the government and parties such as the Chamber of Commerce on key issues such as privacy, legal certainty and public accessibility of business information. “As an industry association, we strongly advocate that business information remains accessible and usable for our companies. Indeed, we see an increasing tension between the role of market players such as business information specialists and the commercial course of a public service provider like the Chamber of Commerce.” Monopolisation of the Trade Register not only makes it more difficult for businesses to do business in a well-informed manner, it will also lead to higher fees for end customers. Moreover, further foreclosure of the Trade Register also penalises entrepreneurs and market players by putting a hard stop to innovation of the business information sector. After all, verified trade data is at the heart of the development of new products and services.
About the Association for Business B2B Information
The Association for Business B2B Information was founded by five leading business information providers: Altares Dun & Bradstreet, CreditDevice, Creditsafe, Company.info and Graydon. Together, they serve the vast majority of the Dutch credit and business information market. They support tens of thousands of companies in legally securing millions of business deals every year by providing reliable, complete and up-to-date business information. This information enables companies to make informed business decisions, identify opportunities and mitigate risks. Public business information is one of the main sources for this, enriched with information from other sources and in-house developed data intelligence. The association therefore strongly supports fast, technically functional and fair access to business information.
