Vendor Identity Network

Q: What is a vendor identity network?

See the definition above – and read the full guide to the Vendor Identity Network for the complete breakdown of what it contains and how it stays current.

Q: How is a vendor identity network different from a vendor database?

A database stores whatever a vendor submits. A network authenticates it, monitors it continuously, and makes it portable across every connected Payer – a database can’t do any of those three things.

Q: How does the network prevent payment fraud?

Every banking change request is re-authenticated by the Payee directly before it applies, and that authentication is applied across the network – so an impersonation attempt gets caught before it reaches an AP team, not after a payment goes out.

Q: What happens to vendors already authenticated elsewhere in the network?

Their Payee Profile is already authenticated. Your organization benefits from the work that is already done. You can use that verified identity instead of re-onboarding from scratch, which shortens onboarding time and improves your vendor data from day one.

Q: Is our vendor data shared with other organizations in the network?

The PaymentWorks Payee Profile, comprised of authenticated identity attributes – including tax ID, legal name, bank account – is shared by that vendor to all customers on the network. Commercial details specific to your relationship with a vendor, like pricing or contract terms, are not.

Q: How does the Vendor Identity Network connect to the Vendor Identity Platform?

The platform is what your organization uses to manage vendor identity. The network is the shared infrastructure that makes that management more accurate and defensible than any single organization could achieve alone.

1.5M+ authenticated payees and growing.  The shared trust infrastructure behind every PaymentWorks customer’s vendor file.

One Standardized Vendor Credential. Authenticated Forever.

Every vendor verification program hits the same ceiling: it only knows what happens inside its own walls. You can verify a vendor at onboarding, monitor for changes, and enforce control, but you have no visibility into what happens to that vendor’s identity everywhere else. A vendor’s email account compromised at another company doesn’t alert you to the problem, because your vendor data does not benefit from network intelligence.
Most organizations solve this the same way: build a more detailed form, train AP to spot fraud, run a campaign to convert vendors to electronic payment, buy a product that verifies some, but not all, vendor bank accounts. None of this solves the root problem.

How the PaymentWorks Vendor Identity Network Works

We built the vendor form for the world.

Vendors build a Payee Profile once, authenticated against business identity, tax, and banking data from the start → every vendor in the network is authenticated, not just registered

Vendors carry that authenticated Payee Profile across every Payer in the network → a vendor authenticated by one customer is already authenticated and ready to onboard for the next.

Vendor changes are simple. PaymentWorks re-authenticates a Payee every time data changes and screens continuously against OFAC, sanctions, and debarment lists → the network catches what a single organization can’t see on its own

The PaymentWorks vendor identity network standardizes how you capture and authenticate vendor information with automated identity checks—so every profile is complete, compliant, and secure from day one.

We are very satisfied with PaymentWorks! With the UI changes that are taking place and the pipeline ideas that are being discussed, we are very excited to see what the future holds! Further, we are very happy with what is happening in the present. We love the direction we are going.

Hannah Kanouff

Vendor Management Coordinator, Penn State University

Clean Data. Operational Efficiency. Secure Payments. One Network.

Largest Network of Authenticated Payees

1.5M+ authenticated payees and growing – the largest network of authenticated payees.

Unmatched Fraud Indemnification

Up to $5M in payment protection – PaymentWorks indemnifies up to $2M directly and offers optional supplemental social engineering coverage of up to $3M through Lockton Companies. No other vendor management or business payments provider offers this.

Front Door to the ERP

Front door to the ERP – a Payee’s identity is authenticated before it ever becomes ERP data, so the rest of your P2P processes operate with clean data.

Connect to the largest network of authenticated vendors

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Vendor Identity Network FAQs

Are you interested in knowing more?

What is vendor identity network?

A vendor identity network is shared infrastructure where a vendor’s verified identity – business identity, tax credentials, banking information, compliance status – is established once and reused across every organization connected to it. Instead of every company verifying the same vendor from scratch, an authenticated Payee Profile travels with that vendor across the network, so verification work compounds rather than repeats.

What is a vendor identity network?

How is a vendor identity network different from a vendor database?

How does the network prevent payment fraud?

What happens to vendors already authenticated elsewhere in the network?

Is our vendor data shared with other organizations in the network?

How does the Vendor Identity Network connect to the Vendor Identity Platform?

Vendor Master Integrity. Risk-Free B2B Payments. One Network.

1.5M+ authenticated payees and growing. The shared trust infrastructure behind every PaymentWorks customer’s vendor file.