In this episode of the Connector Podcast, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Jens, head of fraud at Graydon CreditSafe, to explore how the 2022 acquisition of the long‑standing Belgian credit‑information firm Graydon by the international data provider CreditSafe has reshaped their offering. Jens explains that the merger combines Graydon’s deep local intelligence with CreditSafe’s global data network, creating a "best of both worlds" platform. The conversation moves through the evolution of core services—from traditional credit reports covering over 200 countries to multi‑dimensional insights that address fraud detection, ESG compliance, and a newly developed shock‑resilience indicator that reflects recent crises such as COVID‑19, the energy shock, and geopolitical events. Data quality is ensured through a hybrid approach of public source aggregation, OCR, and human‑in‑the‑loop validation. Technology, inherited from CreditSafe’s disruptive DNA, powers scoring models and insight generation. Differentiation is achieved by delivering not just data but actionable insights and integrated processes, supported by strategic fintech partners: Harmony (KYC compliance) and Data Village (secure data collaboration). Jens highlights the importance of global data uniformity, allowing a single rating view for companies worldwide, while noting regional maturity gaps, especially in Latin America. Finally, he describes the ideal customer—financial institutions and growth‑stage companies seeking tailored insights—and how inbound marketing drives engagement.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Cohen van der Huydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast from the Connector and Belgium Fintech, and today I've got with me Graydon Credit Safe. represented by Jens. Good morning and welcome.
Good morning.
Can you explain us a little bit more about yourself and the company?
Definitely. And also, thank you for, uh, for having me.
It's a pleasure.
So, uh, my name is Jens. I work for Graydon CrateSafe, um, coming from the Graydon part. As you may know, there are 2 companies.
Uh, well, you have to explain us all about this.
Definitely. Uh, we'll, uh, we'll definitely be a topic, uh, topic today. And I'm head of fraud, meaning I'm managing the fraud department where we have solutions around fraud prevention and detection. And besides that, I'm also a consultant. So I consult also the clients that we have on certain topics. So yeah, very happy to be here and explain to you more what we do and where we stand for.
Oh, absolutely. And let's, let's dive into that straight away. So what's the deal? Gradon CreditSafe. What happened?
Well, so 2 companies basically, Gradon and CreditSafe. Gradon is a very known player in Belgium for more than 35 years, started up in '88, I think. And CreditSafe started up in '97, was more like a disruptor in the industry. And well, they decided to acquire Gradon in 2022. which was in hindsight a very logical acquisition because Gradium was a very known player in the local market, also from a data perspective, and CredSafe, yeah, a very known player in the international market, also from a data perspective. So yeah, what we see is, yeah, the best of both worlds right now.
A match made in heaven.
Correct, definitely.
And why would you say, I mean, you give like the fact that local quality Versus global quality. Is that sort of what it is?
Yeah, correct. The baseline is global data, local intelligence. So we keep the local intelligence and definitely in Belgium from the Gradon part. And now we add an extra layer of international scope. So yeah, it's really a match made in heaven, I would say.
And what would you say are your core services? With this new setup company? Well, new, it's already a couple of years now, right?
Yeah, it's been a couple of years. And also here you see a little bit the difference between the 2 companies. So yeah, let's say the core business of the 2 companies was credit management. So we provide credit reports worldwide, also offering credit data in, in a lot of countries, more than 200. But what we do now, and that's also what we saw in Grainon almost 8 years ago, that Looking at the same company is is not the same than than a while ago, and now you have to have different views on the same company. So yeah, we asked ourselves the question: What can we do with the same data on different levels? And I think that's that's one of the reasons now that we yeah managed to really stand out in in the market right now.
Because Credit Safe was also very known in the market around KYB know your business. How is that part then being integrated in the new company?
Well, that's, that's one of the examples. So I think also the market is also driven by a couple of evolutions. If you look at KYC, KYB coming from the legislation, of course. So it also drives us to develop solutions around compliance, around KYC. But also one of the, the, the new topics that is arising is ESG. Of course, ESG is is a follow-up of the Green Deal. So also there you see that, yeah, definitely the banks now, but also other institutions need to comply with this legislation. And again, we ask ourselves, what can we do with our data in order to create insights around that? So it's going much more further than the traditional credit reports and credit management market in the past.
Yeah. So it's a lot about data. You said that a few times. But when you talk about data, your data is as good as the worst link or the bad data that you have. So how do you ensure there's accuracy and reliability for financial institutions predominantly?
Yeah, and they're basically our clients, so they expect that extra, going the extra mile for them. So what we always have been doing in, yeah, from a Gradon perspective is you have the public sources, but you also see, for example, in Belgium, the KBO. The Chamber of Commerce, more or less, you see that there is a margin of error of 15%. So we need other sources. Yeah. To get that quality right. And then you see that we have the publications of the Belgian Gazette. It's a, it's a very complex, unstructured data. So we, we had and we still have, but we had a lot of people that do manual input and corrections on that data. But nowadays you see that technology is coming. You can OCR a document But you still see that there's a human in the loop necessary to create that extra layer of, of quality. So that's what we all have been doing. And yeah, due to technology, we can still improve that, that process. Yeah.
And that technology part, is that credit safe?
Yeah, I, I definitely can say that because they were a disruptor, they still are, that they're more perceived as a, yeah, as a technology data provider and Grader was more like the dinosaur, you know. So also they're an example of bringing the best of both worlds. And you also see that on a group level that they're investing a lot in, in technology as well to get the data accuracy as right. But as well, the insight following on that data is also very important because we don't only deliver the data, we deliver the insights on different levels. So you need technology to, you know, to create a scoring around it and to create the probability of a certain topic. Is it around fraud, around ESG, around the creditworthiness? And the traditional way you see that, yeah, there's definitely a driver from, from the CredSafe Group as well.
And how do you differentiate yourself against any other sort of providers in the market?
Well, that's a good question. And I think we do it in 2 ways. First of all, I mentioned a few. It's around data and insights, right? So You see that today, if you look at a company and the creditworthiness of a company, it's not sufficient anymore to look at that in a very traditional way. You need different views on the same company. And if you look at the topic around fraud prevention or ESG, etc., these are topics that we really co-created with our clients. If you know that all the banks are clients in Belgium, all the insurers, 90% of the leasing companies. So yeah, we could have a lot of input around a certain topic. We use our data and our technology to create those unique insights. And I can definitely say that on those 2 topics, ESG and fraud, but also around shock resilience, for example, we had COVID, we had the energy crisis. So yeah, we're constantly searching for other insights on the same company. And I think that's where we, we make the difference. We really make the difference around that. So basically on the data and insight, one and two, what I also find that we're doing very, very good at this moment is in a company you have 3 things. You have data insights and process. In the beginning, we're not managing a process. We just deliver the data to the front door. So we ask ourselves, okay, how can we improve the process? Because the better the data is being used in a process, Yeah, the better for us as well. So we, we really choose our partners. So we use software partners, which I will definitely give a few examples later on. But they, they, we choose the best partners in certain areas around compliance, around data collaboration. So yeah, we, we use the right partners to do so. And I think that's also one of the benefits that we have in, in Belgium as well. Yeah.
Let's maybe zoom a bit on, on the partnership because we're here also in a Belgium fintech podcast. So do you work a lot with fintechs and how does partnership look like for you?
Yeah, definitely. And I think, well, the most prominent partners that we do have right now, they're Harmony. So Harmony is, well, for the people that don't know, Harmony is a compliance expert that manages the process of all around KYC compliance, etc. Yeah, and basically we integrate our data into their systems and It's a unique positioning because you combine the best of also here, the best of both worlds, process software and also data. So that's really a partner where we have a very strong connection with. And well, another member of fintech is Data Village, as you may know. So Data Village, yeah, they can, they really create for us an environment, a software platform where our customers, meaning definitely the ones that have a, yeah, like a common challenge. So the banks, the insurers, they all have to do with the same kind of topics, but they, they're not so eager to share data. Sharing data, data collaboration is the king. Definitely. So, and that's what we embed into our systems as well. So I give you an example around fraud. Every industry, but definitely the ones that I just named, they have, they have a problem with, with fraud companies. Entrepreneurs, persons that create a company. It could be shell companies or companies to commit fraud. We do develop insights around that to prevent, but still there are companies that, that, yeah, can, can really have a financial impact on, on those institutions. So what if they all could collaborate on the same topic and they share their experiences around it? And from our experience, they, they already did it with us, but you still see that, that there's some boundaries on that one. And I think, yeah, now with implementing the software of Data Village, yeah, you see that the barriers go down because they know they can collaborate, not sharing, but collaborate on the same topic. And I think Data Village is very strong in that area.
It's the magic of confidential computing.
Yes, it is. It's, well, it's a very technical aspect. I'm not that technical, but well, what, I've seen so far from the technology is very promising, very promising.
So it's nice to see that you work with other companies. Now, the fact that you use so much data, I would imagine that your big data team is tremendous, or is that a misjudgment?
No, we have to keep up to date with everything that happens in the world. Look at the geopolitical situation right now. So we are, again, we're constantly looking On local level, but also from a group perspective. Okay, what are certain relevant topics in society which we can where we can have a contribution on? So they're constantly busy like okay, this is happening. How we can react on this this certain event? I think one of the biggest examples here is everybody agrees that the economy from ten years ago you have like high and low conjuncture. That's not happening anymore. We're evolving towards an economy with a lot of shocks. So again, we had the COVID period where, yeah, everything went— had to close. So turnover went almost to zero for certain, certain activities and industries. Now we had the huge energy shock as well. Now we see also the war in Ukraine. So you see that there are a lot of things happening now. Also, Trump gets elected. He's going to put a lot of Yeah, import and import tariffs on, on a, on a global scale. Will that have an impact? Definitely. So yeah, that's why we created also a shock resilience indicator. Again, another view on a company which didn't exist 4 years ago. So constantly looking for what's happening in the world, what's happening on a local level in order to, you know, what clients really ask is to give input around certain topics.
Jens, I'm glad that you bring it back on that global level because I want to jump back a little bit towards the end of our podcast now on your globalization. Do you see differences in terms of how data is being used in Europe versus, I don't know, Middle East versus US versus Asia? Would you be able to shed a light on that?
Well, I think I can give a very personal example. My wife is Colombian, so I've been there a lot as well for family visits. I'm always very interested in exploring the market, like how does it work? And I think Latin America versus Europe is a good example, you know.
So interesting.
Yeah. If you see here, we're, yeah, we're not there yet, but you see that a lot of processes are optimized and, you know, automation is very key here. Digitization is also key here. And if you look at Latin America, there are emerging markets like Brazil that are very, very growing a lot. Yeah, the pure credit management, our core business, is like 10 years behind. So that's one of the examples I can give from a personal perspective. But also data-wise, I can tell you that we have a very strong network worldwide. And one of the things that CreditSafe does best is gathering all the information from all over the world and make it very uniform. Into our database, so with one click you can have the same rating on a Belgian company than from a company in Australia or in Puerto Rico or whatever. And that is what our business does. So you don't need to be yeah very educated to see if the light is green, orange, or red. So that's the strength.
Oh, nice. Now since we're at the end of the podcast, so what would be your ideal customer that comes to you and how do they get to you?
That's a very good question. Well, I think when I'm the most happiest is, you know, I've been doing a lot of business with financial services companies, banks, institutions, etc., etc. It gives me a lot of pleasure, but what I really get energy from is, you know, providing the right insights to startups, scale-ups, in order that they can grow. I think I can also mention a company in Belgium that is very close to me. It's Lizzi. It's a secondhand leasing company. You know, they've been doing business with us and we provide them insights from the beginning and they keep on growing, expanding into other markets. So that's really a customer where I would say like, okay, I really get the pleasure of working with them and facilitating them in their growth. So that's for me the ideal customer because I get a lot of energy from those types of companies.
Cool. And Jens, how do they contact you?
Yeah, they— well, we have a very strong marketing team, so they came to us via the website. It was very— Yeah, very, very good to have that kind of inbound marketing.
Makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much for your insights. Thank you also to the audience and please stay tuned for more.
And thank you again for having me. It was a very nice conversation.
You're very welcome. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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