As an example, we have a Global Address Verification Web Service that helps to provide shipping accuracy, fraud reduction, identity verification, and better overall global data for customer support for over 240 countries. This is achieved by utilizing many different country-specific postal data sources. Behind the scenes, all of this reference data is constantly updated so our customers don't have to worry about maintaining the most current address and postal information. This provides for significantly reduced complexity for our customers who are managing their own global customer or prospect data, and allows them to focus resources on their core business rather than managing address data.
This easy-to-integrate Web Service works simply by providing an international address as input parameters. Verification information, including additional data about the address, is returned by the service from our data center instantaneously over the Web in the form of an XML-based SOAP or REST Web service API call. This enables the resultant data from the service to be integrated into applications, Web sites, Web forms, third-party products, and business processes, typically (depending on the development environment) with just a couple of lines of code.
Many of the supported countries include over 98% street level coverage as part of the Web service. This applies to most of Europe including the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and several others. This same level of coverage also applies to many other major countries around the world including Hong Kong, Mexico, Argentina, and Japan. Also, localized place names are utilized if desired.
In some countries where postal systems are less developed and there isn't the same level of street-level reference data detail available, you can still get city and postal code verification level data. This can aid in partial data validation that is still of significant value in many different usage scenarios. Some examples of countries that fall into this category include Nigeria, Syria, Montenegro, Vietnam, and Panama. More detailed information on the 240 countries supported can be found here.