How to Buy a People Profile on Bizfile

A People Profile costs $33 and answers one question a Business Profile cannot: what else is this person involved in? It lists the businesses registered to an individual, their current and past appointments, and the shareholdings they hold.

Raffles Corporate Services works with a panel of experienced Singapore law firms who offer cost-effective and efficient legal service and advice. This article is general information only and is not legal advice.

You search the People tab on Bizfile, pick whether you want current positions, past positions or both, and pay. Delivery is within fifteen minutes, and you have thirty days to download the product before the link expires.

The hard part is not the purchase. It is making sure the person you bought is the person you meant.

What a People Profile actually shows

Think of it as the mirror image of a Business Profile. A Business Profile starts with one entity and lists everybody attached to it. A People Profile starts with one individual and lists every entity attached to them.

You get:

• Businesses registered to that person, for example sole proprietorships and partnerships in their name
• Current appointments, meaning live directorships, company secretary roles and similar positions
• Past appointments, meaning positions that have ceased
• Shareholding amounts in the businesses the person is involved in
• Whether the person is a registered public accountant, if you supply their registration number

That last item matters if you are appointing an auditor or verifying that the person signing off a set of accounts is actually entitled to.

Business Profile or People Profile?

That fifth row is the one people miss. A People Profile is not the cheapest way to obtain an identification number. If you know a company the person is attached to, the Business Profile of that company shows directors’ and shareholders’ identification details for $5.50.

The steps, in order

1. Go to Bizfile and find the search block on the homepage.
2. Select the People tab rather than the entity tab. This is the step people skip, and searching a person’s name in entity search returns nothing useful.
3. Enter the person’s exact full name as it appears on their identification document, and set the keyword match type to name exact match. Partial matching against a common name produces an unusable list.
4. In the results, find your subject and click Add to cart.
5. Choose what you are buying: current positions, past positions, or both. The result count shown against each option tells you how many positions you are paying to see.
6. Open the cart from the icon at the top right.
7. Review the cart, then click Checkout. You may log in with Singpass or Corppass, or continue as a guest.
8. Enter your name and delivery email address, then click through to review and pay.
9. On the acknowledgement screen, download the product. You have 30 days from purchase to download it.

Making sure you bought the right person

This is the whole risk in a People Profile, and it is worth $33 of your attention.

Singapore name duplication is common, particularly across romanised Chinese names and across Indian and Malay naming conventions where a father’s name recurs. A search for a common full name can return several distinct individuals, and the interface will not tell you which is which by name alone.

Three ways to resolve it before you pay:

Work backwards from a company you already know. If you know one entity the person is involved in, buy that entity’s Business Profile first. It gives you the identification number, and with that you can be certain which search result is your subject.

Use the position count as a fingerprint. When you click add to cart, Bizfile shows how many current and past positions each candidate holds. If your subject is supposed to be a serial director with eleven companies, the candidate showing one position is not them.

Ask before you buy. Bizfile’s search results page carries a live chat link. Give them the full name and the identification number and they will help you identify the right record. Using it costs nothing, and $33 is enough money to justify thirty seconds of asking.

What goes wrong in practice

Buying the wrong individual and discovering it too late. There is no refund mechanism for an information product bought in error. A People Profile that turns out to describe a different person of the same name is $33 gone, and worse, if you do not notice, you have made a commercial decision on the wrong facts.

Leaving the download for later. The download window is thirty days. Most people download immediately from the acknowledgement screen and never think about it. The ones who get caught are the ones who buy a batch, file the confirmation emails, and come back after a deal goes quiet. Download it the day you buy it, and save it somewhere that is not your inbox.

Searching without exact match on. Loose matching against a common name returns dozens of candidates and makes the identification problem worse rather than better. Turn exact match on, then widen only if you genuinely get nothing.

Being blocked by the security layer. Bizfile puts anti-automation protections in front of its search. If you see a message about a suspicious attempt, or the search runs noticeably slowly, that is the protection working rather than your account being flagged. Switching browser or device usually clears it. If you are pulling a large number of searches in a session, expect to hit it.

Reading a long list of ceased positions as a red flag on its own. It is not. Anybody who has worked in corporate services, private equity or family office administration accumulates ceased directorships as a matter of routine. What matters is the pattern: companies that ceased shortly after incorporation, clusters of cessations at the same date, or positions that ceased around the time an entity was struck off. Context comes from pairing the People Profile with the Business Profiles of the interesting entities.

Where a People Profile earns its $33

Appointing a director you do not know well. Directors carry real personal exposure under the Companies Act 1967, and so does the company that appoints one carelessly. Knowing what else a prospective director runs, and what has ceased, is basic hygiene. It is also the cheapest part of the process.

Investor and joint venture diligence. When you are being introduced to a promoter with an impressive track record, the People Profile tells you whether the track record is registered in Singapore or only asserted in a deck.

Recovering from a counterparty who has gone quiet. If the company you were dealing with has stopped answering, the People Profile of the person you dealt with often shows where else they are now active.

Nominee arrangements. A People Profile shows registered positions. It does not tell you who is behind a nominee. Nominee directorships and nominee shareholdings sit in separate registers with their own disclosure rules, and controllers sit in the register of registrable controllers. If nominee structures are in play, read the Corporate Service Providers Act 2024 compliance FAQ and the Companies Act 1967 deep-dive FAQ before you conclude anything from a profile.

Disqualification questions. If you are wondering whether someone is disqualified from acting as a director, a People Profile is not the instrument for that. ACRA’s disqualification framework, including the money laundering grounds introduced in the amended Form 45, runs on its own track.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a People Profile cost on Bizfile?
$33 per profile, payable by credit card, debit card or online banking. Delivery is within fifteen minutes and you have thirty days to download the product. You can buy it as a guest without logging in, although logging in with Singpass or Corppass keeps your purchase history in one place.

What if I do not know the person’s NRIC or FIN?
You do not need it to search, but you may need it to be certain you have the right person. The reliable workaround is to buy the Business Profile of a company you know they are involved in for $5.50. That shows directors’ and shareholders’ identification numbers, which then lets you pick the correct People Profile record with confidence.

Several people share the name I searched. How do I tell them apart?
Two practical methods. Use the position counts shown when you click add to cart and match them against what you already know about your subject. Or identify the person through a specific entity by buying that entity’s Business Profile first. Bizfile’s live chat on the search results page will also help if you supply a name and identification number.

Why does Bizfile say “suspicious attempt detected” when I search?
That is the platform’s anti-automation protection, not a problem with your account. It also explains why search sometimes feels slow: the system is verifying that a human is doing the searching. Trying a different browser or a different device normally resolves it.

Does a People Profile show someone’s home address?
It is built around positions, businesses and shareholdings rather than personal contact details. Residential and contact addresses for directors and shareholders appear in the Business Profile of the entity concerned. If an address is what you are after, the entity-side product is the one to buy.

Can I buy a People Profile about myself?
Yes, and it is a sensible thing to do once, particularly if you have held positions over many years. It shows what the register says about you, which is not always what you would have said about yourself. Old directorships that were never properly ceased turn up this way.

The check that takes ten minutes and saves a year

Most of the disputes we see involving an unfamiliar counterparty could have been shortened by a $33 purchase and ten minutes of reading before anyone signed anything.

Raffles Corporate Services runs person and entity checks for clients ahead of appointments, investments and joint ventures, and reads the output in context rather than as a list of names. If you are about to appoint a director, take on a shareholder, or commit to someone you met three weeks ago, that is a short conversation worth having first.

You can reach us through Raffles Corporate Services, or read more on Singapore corporate secretarial practice at Singapore Secretary Services. ACRA’s information product pages and current fees are published on acra.gov.sg.

— The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services