We’ve launched a new integration with New Jersey’s Secretary of State, significantly expanding our registration coverage and unlocking additional status and standing fields - a capability unique to Baselayer.

This enhancement improves match reliability for newly incorporated New Jersey businesses and, for the first time, enables SoS standing checks across a state that historically provided very limited programmatic access.

We have begun backfilling status and standing information for NJ registrations. Coverage is increasing steadily, though some entities will continue to return status = "unknown" until the backfill is complete.

If you have questions about the rollout or would like early access to expanded fields, please contact your Baselayer representative.

Website Analysis now surfaces website_build_status, indicating whether the site is:

• Active
• Under construction (coming soon)
• Inactive

This strengthens early fraud detection during onboarding and supports existing risk flags associated with a domain metadata such as email_deliverable or parked.

We’ve released a major upgrade to Business Search with the introduction of Enhanced Search, an optional mode that enriches KYB results using online intelligence in addition to traditional government filings.

To enable Enhanced Search, include the following in your payload:

"options": ["Order.Enhanced"]

What Enhanced Search Does

When this option is requested, Baselayer automatically performs multiple operations behind the scenes (on top of the Business Search):

• Industry Prediction & Website Analysis: included by default
• Online Address Extraction: pulling addresses found across websites and social profiles
• Online Officer & People Extraction: identifying individuals associated with the business online
• Socials & Reviews: uncovering all social profiles and online review sites for the business

All of these data points are then combined into the unified business profile to strengthen match confidence.

Introducing the sources Field

We’ve added a new field to help customers classify where information originated:

• "sos": data obtained directly from Secretary of State registrations
• "online": data discovered through Baselayer’s enhanced online presence review

The sources attribute is now available under both:

• the addresses array
• the business_officers array

This allows you to distinguish regulatory filings from online findings and apply your own decision rules accordingly.

Why This Matters

Enhanced Search significantly improves match accuracy for:

• thin-file businesses
• companies with limited U.S. footprint
• businesses whose public presence exists primarily online

By merging structured SoS data with dynamic online signals, Enhanced Search increases verification coverage and reduces manual review for previously hard-to-match applicants.

Latency Notice

Enhanced Search involves multiple operations - including live discovery and AI agents - so response times will be longer than a standard POST /searches request.

Litigation & Bankruptcy Search via /docket_searches now includes:

• match_level: how closely a party in the docket matches with the business legal name (EXACT or SIMILAR)
• risk_level: Baselayer's internal risk classification of each docket (high, medium, low, no_risk)
• normalized_status: Baselayer's normalization of the docket status (open or closed)
  • This field is conservative by design, and will only mark a docket as closed when confirmed

These fields improve risk classification, grouping across jurisdictions, and will enable financial institutions to automate more decisions accurately.

For further details you can review our Best Practices guide or contact your Baselayer representative.

You can now run OFAC checks in batch via API, allowing high-volume sanctions workflows with a single request.

Submit a CSV for batch OFAC search, no larger than 5MB, following the sample template in the API reference.

Once run, Baselayer will return a quick summary of metrics associated with the batch search, and you can also use GET/ofac/searches/batches/{batch_id}/download to retrieve the resulting OFAC batch file in jsonl format, including the details of each check.

Contact your Baselayer representative for further details.

A new standalone POST /tin_verifications route is now available.

This allows customers to run IRS TIN checks, for both EINs and SSNs, without submitting a full Business Search.

You can access this standalone API route here.

We’ve launched Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) Screening as both a standalone API product and an optional add-on within Business Search.

You can now run a PEP check in two ways:

1. Standalone PEP Search

Submit a POST request to:
POST https://api.baselayer.com/pep/searches

Only two fields are required:

• name: full name of the individual you wish to screen
• similarity_threshold: optional, defaults to 0.9, enabling configurable match sensitivity

This is ideal for lightweight workflows, KYC/KYB pipelines that need individual-level checks, and use cases where you want PEP screening without a full business profile.

2. As Part of a Business Search

You can also trigger a PEP check directly within a standard Business Search by adding Order.Pep to the options array of your payload.

Example:

{  
  "name": "Acme Holdings LLC",  
  "address": "123 Main St, Denver, CO",  
  "options": ["Order.Pep"]  
}

When requested this way, the PEP results are returned alongside KYB, sanctions, and the rest of the Baselayer business verification output - simplifying end-to-end risk review.

What This Means for Your Workflow

• No additional integration complexity
• Configurable match sensitivity for more reliable results
• Centralized view of PEP risk inside the standard search flow
• Usable for both individual screening and officer/UBO checks

PEP screening is now available to all customers. Let us know if you'd like help enabling it or adjusting your matching thresholds.

We’ve upgraded our webhook payloads to make routing, debugging, and event classification significantly easier for engineering teams.

This update requires no integration changes.
All existing webhook endpoints automatically receive the enhanced payload format.

What’s new

All webhook events now include a standardized "event" object at the top level of the payload.
This object provides canonical metadata describing exactly which webhook your listener is receiving.

The event object

Each webhook delivered by Baselayer now begins with:

"__event__": {  
  "type": "WebPresenceRequest.submitted",  
  "origin": "api"  
}

This object includes:

• type: the precise webhook event name, selected from Baselayer’s full enumeration of supported events (e.g., BusinessSearch.Completed, LienSearch.Submitted, WebPresenceRequest.Completed). This ensures your integration can reliably route and interpret all webhook types.
• origin: indicates whether the event was triggered via the API or Console. Defaults to api unless initiated manually.

Web Presence requests now support an optional alternative_names fields to submit known DBAs (Doing Business As) of applicants, enabling more accurate website discovery and industry classification.

We expect this enhancement to significantly improve match quality - particularly for categories where DBAs are the primary online identity, such as restaurants, bars, salons, and other consumer-facing businesses. Supplying a DBA helps Baselayer identify the correct website faster and return higher-confidence industry predictions with fewer false positives.

No changes are required on your end beyond including the optional alternative_names field in your request payload.

We’ve released an updated version of our PDF business reports, now featuring cleaner formatting, clearer match explanations, and additional data fields such as KYB/Risk Rating summaries, officer information, website analysis, and watchlist results.

You can generate these reports programmatically using the new export endpoint.

Simply submit the search_id to:

POST https://api.baselayer.com/searches/{id}/export

and Baselayer will return the PDF directly via API, no additional parameters required.

In the console, reports can also be downloaded instantly by clicking the Download PDF arrow on any completed business search, making it easy to share or attach documentation in your underwriting workflow.