ASIC Connect vs a company data API: which one for what

ASIC Connect is the authoritative front door to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's registers. An API reads ASIC's published company data in a form your software can call. They answer different questions.

What ASIC Connect is for

ASIC Connect is ASIC's own search service. A person searches for a company, a business name or other registered bodies, looks at the entity's details and can order official extracts and documents from the register. If you need an official extract, a lodged document or an answer you can put in front of a court or an auditor as coming from ASIC itself, this is where you go, and nothing here replaces it.

What a company data API is for

When the question comes up a hundred or a hundred thousand times, in a signup form, a supplier file or a nightly screening job, a person at a search screen is the wrong tool. An API takes an ACN, an ABN or a name and returns structured fields, the same way for every country, so the data goes straight into the onboarding screen, the CRM or the risk model.

	ASIC Connect	Prometiam API
Who uses it	A person at a screen	Your software
Authority	The register itself; official extracts and documents	ASIC Company Dataset joined to the ABR extract, adapted by Prometiam; not an official extract
Lookup by ACN, ABN, name	Yes	company_number=, abn=, vat=, name= (autocomplete)
Many at once	One at a time	POST /companies/lookup, up to 100 per call
Change alerts	You re-check	POST /monitor webhooks on status and register-change events
Same shape in other countries	No	Yes, 27 countries
Freshness	Live register	Weekly snapshot

What the API returns for Australia

The registered name, the previous names, the type and class (APTY, APUB or FNOS), the status in plain terms with ASIC's own code beside it (including strike-off in progress, external administration and deregistration), the ABN, the GST number where the ABN is active and registered for GST, and the state and postcode of the registered office. Source: the ASIC Company Dataset and the ABR ABN Bulk Extract, both published as open data.

What the API does not carry

• A street address. State and postcode only. If you need the registered office's full address, an ASIC Connect extract has it.
• Officers, shareholders and share capital. Not in the Australian record.
• Documents and extracts. The API returns data, not lodged documents.
• A separate liquidation status. External administration shows as in_administration.
• Non-company entities. Sole traders, trusts, partnerships, associations and cooperatives are never served.

A sensible split

Let the API do the volume: validate and enrich at signup, screen the supplier file, watch for status changes. Go to ASIC Connect when a decision needs the register's own document or the full address. The two are not rivals; one is for people and evidence, the other for pipelines.

Australia is included in every plan at no upcharge. The 14-day free trial includes 500 credits, needs a card and charges nothing; Starter (EUR 9.99 a month, 1,000 credits) follows unless you cancel. A company record costs 1 credit; an error response costs nothing. See pricing for the plans.

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Contains data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Company Dataset and the Australian Business Register (ABN Bulk Extract), licensed CC BY 3.0 AU (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/). Adapted by Prometiam (joined, normalised, status derived).