SME · extending trade credit to new corporate customer
Business risk score for trade credit
The problem
Extending trade credit to a new SME corporate customer is a real risk. Creditsafe charges £2k/year minimum + a per-pull fee; Endole runs ~£25/month subscription. For a five-customer-a-month SME, those are the wrong shape. Doing nothing means the next bad debt costs more than a year of either subscription.
How Stratum fits
The business-risk endpoint returns an A-F score derived from 8 Companies House factors (filings status, charges, officer history, insolvency events, accounts age, registered-office stability, group structure, IDV) plus a recommended credit limit (algorithmic, lower-bound) plus a 12-month insolvency probability. Pay-as-you-go pricing — £2 per check, no subscription floor.
One request
# Request
curl https://api.stratumapis.com/v1/business-risk/00445790 -H "x-stratum-key: $KEY"
# Response
{ "companyNumber": "00445790", "riskScore": "B", "recommendedCreditLimit": 25000, "insolvencyProbability12Months": 0.04, "factors": {...} }Set $KEY from your dashboard.
Frequently asked
How does this compare to Creditsafe / Endole?
Same Companies House foundation; we add an algorithmic credit-limit + insolvency-probability rather than just surfacing the raw factors. PAYG pricing means a 5-customer-a-month SME pays £10/month (vs £25/mo Endole or £170/mo+ Creditsafe).
What's the credit-limit algorithm?
Derived from filed accounts (turnover + assets) + risk score + sector benchmark. Returns a lower-bound number — it's a starting point for the credit conversation, not a hard limit.
Can I monitor an existing customer for changes?
Yes — `/v1/business-risk/monitor` adds a company to the watchlist; daily diffs alert on score changes (B→C is a procurement-meeting event), CCJs, director changes.