Credit ratings
or entity intelligence.
Different starting points.
Moody’s and Sayari both serve risk and compliance teams, but from different foundations. Moody’s starts from financial data and credit analysis; Sayari starts from corporate ownership and entity relationships. This page explains where each platform excels.
See Sayari in action
Request a live demo – we’ll run your entities through the world model.
Moody’s has built one of the most comprehensive financial data and credit rating platforms in the world. Their coverage of credit ratings, financial statements, and corporate hierarchy is deep – particularly for organizations whose primary concern is credit risk assessment and financial analysis. Moody’s excels at revealing financial health, creditworthiness, and broad counterparty data across millions of entities.
Sayari is built for a different problem: intelligence-grade entity risk – beneficial ownership opacity, sanctions exposure through indirect structures, and the adversarial entity networks that don’t appear in financial statements alone. Where Moody’s maps financial data, Sayari maps entity relationships across 250+ jurisdictions from primary corporate registry data.
If your primary need is credit risk assessment and financial statement analysis, Moody’s may be the right starting point. If you need to resolve who ultimately owns and controls entities in your supply chain – and whether those ownership chains connect to sanctioned parties, forced labor, or adversarial state actors – Sayari serves that use case with intelligence-grade depth.
Quick Verdict
Detailed Comparison
| Capability | Sayari | Moody’s |
|---|---|---|
Entity Intelligence |
||
|
Entity Resolution
Core matching across sources
|
Adversarial-grade resolution – matches entities across scripts, transliterations, known aliases against 450M+ records from primary corporate registries
|
Financial-grade matching – strong on legal entity names and identifier matching (LEI, BVD); less optimized for adversarial alias patterns and hidden ownership structures
|
|
Beneficial Ownership
Ownership chain traversal
|
10+ degree traversal – follows ownership through shell companies, nominees, and trusts across 250+ jurisdictions; built from primary corporate registry data
|
Declared ownership – covers corporate hierarchy and reported ownership structures from financial filings; depth typically 1-2 levels from declared data
|
|
Shell Company Detection
Corporate structure anomalies
|
Network clustering engine – surfaces entities sharing addresses, officers, registration agents; common shell indicators surfaced automatically
|
Not a primary capability – Moody’s focus is financial entity data; corporate structure anomaly detection is not a designed use case
|
Sanctions & Compliance |
||
|
Sanctions List Coverage
Multi-source SDN matching
|
40+ sanctions lists resolved – entity resolution applied before list matching; updates within 4 hours of publication
|
Screening included – sanctions screening is available in Orbis/KYC platform; not the platform’s primary design focus
|
|
Forced Labor / UFLPA
Supply chain human rights
|
Ownership + registry data – connects forced labor indicators through corporate ownership chains, not just financial reporting; covers UFLPA entity list and beyond
|
Not a primary capability – Moody’s focus is financial data; forced labor screening is not a core platform feature
|
|
Adverse Media
News & enforcement action
|
Structured adverse media – surfaced in context of ownership relationships; PEP and enforcement action flags integrated into graph
|
Broad news coverage – Moody’s Orbis includes adverse media and news monitoring; strong breadth across global publications
|
Credit & Financial Data |
||
|
Credit Ratings
Credit risk scoring
|
Not in scope – Sayari does not produce credit ratings; for credit risk assessment, Moody’s is the purpose-built solution
|
Core capability – Moody’s credit ratings are the global standard for sovereign and corporate credit risk; deep integration with financial workflows
|
|
Financial Statements
Income, balance sheets, analysis
|
Not in scope – Sayari focuses on ownership structure and entity risk signals, not financial statement analysis
|
Comprehensive financial data – standardized financial statements for millions of public and private companies via Orbis
|
|
Orbis Corporate Database
Entity coverage breadth
|
Via entity matching – Sayari connects to Orbis data through entity matching and ownership analysis; primary coverage from corporate registries
|
Orbis is core – One of the world’s most comprehensive corporate databases with 500M+ entities and deep financial coverage across markets
|
Platform & Integration |
||
|
API & Developer Access
Real-time integration
|
REST API with SDKs – Python and Node.js; MCP integration for AI agent workflows; designed for real-time compliance integration
|
API available – Moody’s offers API access; enterprise integration typically requires additional licensing and configuration
|
|
Government & Classified
Deployment
|
Deployed across 15+ U.S. government agencies – GovCloud, on-premise, and air-gapped options
|
Government contracts available – Moody’s serves government clients; classified-environment deployment options vary by product line
|
Sayari research · Based on publicly available product documentation and capability analysis. Last reviewed March 2025. Moody’s capabilities described based on Orbis, KYC Service, and Compliance Catalyst product lines.
When to Choose Each Platform
- You need to trace beneficial ownership through opaque structures to determine who ultimately controls entities in your supply chain
- Your compliance team requires sanctions screening with entity resolution that goes beyond list matching
- Government or defense requirements mandate GovCloud or classified deployment
- Enforcement referrals, SAR filings, or regulatory evidence chains are part of your workflow
- You need intelligence-grade entity data from primary corporate registries, not just financial statements
- FOCI, foreign influence, or adversarial state actor exposure is a concern beyond financial data
- Credit risk assessment and financial ratings are the primary decision input
- Your workflow is centered on financial statement analysis and broad corporate data coverage
- You need standardized financial benchmarking across large company universes
- You’re already deeply integrated with existing Moody’s systems (high switching cost)
- Broad news monitoring and adverse media at scale matter more than ownership depth
- Orbis corporate database coverage is a key requirement for your use case
Note: Many organizations use Moody’s and Sayari together – financial screening with Moody’s, ownership and sanctions intelligence with Sayari.
How organizations add Sayari alongside existing financial tools
Most Sayari deployments complement existing financial and credit risk platforms – they add intelligence-grade ownership and sanctions capability that financial-data-only platforms can’t provide.
Assessment Call
30 minutes to understand your current stack, compliance use cases, and ownership intelligence gaps
Proof-of-Concept
Run queries against your actual counterparty data to see what ownership relationships Sayari surfaces that your current tools miss
Integration Scoping
Map API integration points and determine how Sayari fits into your existing compliance workflow and data pipelines
Deployment & Onboarding
4-6 weeks to full deployment with your team trained on entity intelligence workflows and API integration
4-6 weeks
From assessment call to full deployment and team onboarding on ownership intelligence workflows
Frequently Asked Questions
Bring a real counterparty. We’ll run a live comparison.
Upload a counterparty list or provide a company name. We’ll show you the ownership relationships, sanctions exposure, and beneficial owner data Sayari surfaces that financial data alone misses.