A Korean customer wants credit terms. Check this first.

Most verification advice looks one direction: you are the buyer, the Korean company is the supplier. Turn it around. A Korean company wants to buy from you, and wants net-30 or net-60 terms. Now you are the one extending credit — and the same public records that vet a supplier vet a customer, with a different emphasis.

Deferred payment is normal in Korea. That cuts both ways.

Korean domestic B2B runs heavily on deferred payment, and a Korean buyer asking for terms is not being cheeky — they are asking for what their domestic suppliers give them. Which means refusing terms outright can cost you the customer, and granting them blind can cost you the goods. The middle path is knowing who you are lending to, because credit terms are a loan.

The five checks, in order of importance

• Entity type before anything else. The middle two digits of the registration number tell you whether you are invoicing a corporation or an individual. An individual's business debts are the individual's — collection against a person in another country is close to impractical, so terms for a sole trader deserve a much lower ceiling.
• Registration active, and able to receive a proper invoice. The basic status check — registered, trading, not suspended.
• Age and history. The register shows the establishment date and every revision since. A company registered eight months ago asking for net-60 on a first order is a different proposition from one with a decade of filings.
• Headcount trend. A buyer whose pension filings are shrinking is a buyer whose cash is tightening — and trade creditors are the last to hear about it.
• Filed accounts, where they exist. Larger Korean companies file publicly: revenue, profit, debt ratio. A debt ratio of several hundred percent on a falling revenue line is a company that pays late, whatever its purchasing manager promises.

Match the terms to the record, not the relationship