Know Your Business (KYB) Solutions for Confident Business Onboarding
You wouldn’t hire employees without checking their background and references, right? Then why would you work with businesses without knowing who they really are? That vendor you just onboarded could be on a sanctions list or might not exist at all. With fraudsters getting smarter by the second, manual processes just can’t keep up. Know Your Business solutions fix this.
What is Know Your Business (KYB)?
KYB stands for “Know Your Business,” and it is basically the business version of KYC (Know Your Customer). It’s a background check for businesses. A KYB process confirms whether a business is real and registered, identifies who owns and controls it, and indicates whether the owners committed any financial crimes, are on any sanctions list, or politically exposed list. You also have access to documentation or detailed record-keeping for audits.
The outcome of KYB verification for business onboarding is that you can confidently work with legitimate businesses while protecting yourself from money laundering, fraud, and regulatory penalties.
When Do You Need KYB?
Let’s look at the regulatory side of things. KYB obligations fall under big compliance umbrellas like anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorism financing (CFT), and sanctions rules.
Regulators want to make sure you really know who owns the businesses you work with, what those businesses do, and what kind of risk they bring to the table. Banking partners expect the same thing.
You’ll encounter KYB requirements in your Customer Due Diligence (CDD) processes, Customer Identification Programs (CIP), and when you’re onboarding with partner banks. So, KYB is a process you simply cannot ignore.
Common KYB Triggers:
- Opening business bank or payment accounts
- Onboarding merchants, platforms, vendors, or large business payees
- Providing lending, card issuing, or wallet services to entities
- Supporting cross-border, high-risk, or correspondent arrangements
Why a Modern KYB Solution Is a Must
In a world where regulations and risk appetite are constantly changing, a modern KYB solution helps compliance teams have a standard process to rely on. But it’s important that the solution connects to authoritative registries and applies consistent rules across business sizes and models.
Some of the core components of a modern KYB solution are:
- Standardized intake forms with Customer Identification Program (CIP)-aligned fields
- Registry, TIN, and address checks against trusted sources
- Beneficial ownership capture plus KYC for owners and controllers
- Integrated PEP, adverse media, and KYB sanctions and global watchlist screening
- Risk scoring that routes to standard or enhanced due diligence
- Centralized case management to document reviews, decisions, and exceptions
Making KYB Smarter with Risk-Based Workflows
Not all businesses need the same kind of scrutiny or possess the same kind of risks. For example, a local florist shop with simple ownership and low regulatory risk might not have the same number of risk factors compared to an investment firm that operates across countries and has complex ownership structures.
This is where a risk taxonomy—or a way to categorize businesses based on risk—matters. KYB is most effective when it takes geography, industry, product type, transaction behavior, and ownership complexity into account. Smart KYB programs match risk levels to the right checks. The higher the risk the business is, the more checks it needs to go through.
A risk-based KYB solution typically includes:
- Basic checks for low-risk, domestic entities with simple ownership
- Higher documentation standards for high-risk industries or regions
- Enhanced due diligence (EDD) for complex structures or political exposure
- Clear thresholds for auto-approval, manual review, and what gets declined
- Escalation rules for sensitive cases involving senior compliance or legal teams
- Review frequencies based on risk ratings
What Data Do You Need for KYB?
KYB isn’t about collecting every document. The goal isn’t volume; it’s about getting the right information from trusted and verifiable sources. Here are some of the typical KYB data points that matter:
- Basic business details including legal name, registration number, jurisdiction, registered address, and TIN
- Formation documents, business licenses, and official registry extracts
- Ownership charts for multi-layer and cross-border structures
- Identity and sanction checks for owners, directors, and signatories
- Supporting evidence such as ownership declarations, attestations, and documented exceptions
Putting KYB Into Action with Compliancely
Compliancely makes KYB work by embedding checks directly into your onboarding and payment flows. Whether it’s during registration, account activation, first funding, limit changes, or product upgrades, teams can trigger KYB through Compliancely’s business verification suite.
With Compliancely, teams can:
- Run KYB, KYC, sanctions, and tax checks through a single integration
- Automate registry lookups, ownership capture, and screening steps
- Set up risk-based rules for different entity types, geographic regions, and product lines
- Route high-risk cases to manual review with full audit history and documents
- Maintain unified audit logs for every KYB event, decision, and override
KYB Doesn’t Stop at Onboarding
KYB is not a one-time checkbox at onboarding. In today’s fast-paced, continuously evolving business landscape, regulators require ongoing monitoring of the risk level of every business you work with.
When sanction lists change or a company’s ownership shifts, your KYB info needs updating. A modern solution automates re-screening and sends alerts for updates and changes.
Key ongoing controls:
- Continuous monitoring of sanctions, PEP, and adverse media for entities and owners
- Event-driven refresh triggers for profile changes, limits, or new countries
- Scheduled review cycles based on risk band and exposure
- Centralized case management for investigations and remediation
- Generates reports for boards, regulators, banks, and fintech partners
- Easy-to-export documents for continuous KYB monitoring and audit-ready reporting
Real Examples of KYB in Action
A Regional Bank Opens SME Account
A regional bank adopts KYB through Compliancely for small business onboarding. The registry checks confirm the business details automatically and the owners are verified through KYC and sanctions screening. Entities are auto-approved and come with a complete digital trail.
Fintech Marketplace Onboards Global Sellers
A global marketplace uses Compliancely’s KYB APIs to vet merchants. The workflow adapts by country while enforcing global minimums for ownership, sanctions, and PEP checks. High-risk merchants trigger EDD, extra documentation, and senior compliance sign-off before payouts.
Payment Processor Aces Regulatory Exam
A payment company centralized all merchant KYB data in Compliancely. When regulators arrived and requested files, the compliance team exported complete reports showing registry verifications, ownership documentation, screening results, and case notes. What used to take weeks now takes hours.
Enterprise Screens Vendors Before Payment
An enterprise uses Compliancely to screen vendors and payees before ERP onboarding. Each entity gets verified for legitimacy, beneficial ownership, and sanctions exposure. Approved vendors receive risk ratings that determine monitoring frequency and payment approval thresholds.
Lender Expands Internationally Confidently
A lender expanding into new markets configures Compliancely for stricter KYB needs. Higher-risk jurisdictions require additional documents, deeper adverse media checks, and enhanced monitoring. Risk scores inform pricing, collateral requirements, and review schedules.
FAQs
1. What is a KYB solution?
A KYB solution provides business identity verification and risk scoring, ownership structure analysis, and sanctions exposure using trusted data sources. It helps institutions support their anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, and sanctions compliance obligations.
2. How is KYB different from KYC?
KYC processes cover individuals, while KYB processes validate legal entities and beneficial owners. Together, they provide a complete picture of customer and counterparty risk.
3. When is KYB required?
KYB is generally required for business customers in regulated financial services and payment processing. Most institutions apply it to merchants, vendors, and other entity relationships based on regulatory expectations and risk appetite.
4. What information do you need for KYB?
Legal name, registration number, jurisdiction, registered address, tax IDs, beneficial ownership details, and documents proving existence and control. Complex structures may require additional information.
5. Can KYB workflows be fully automated?
Many steps can be automated via APIs and rules, but complex structures, red flags, or high-risk cases still require manual review and documented sign-off.
6. How does Compliancely help with KYB?
Compliancely unifies KYB, KYC, sanctions, and tax checks in one platform, with configurable rules, real-time APIs, and audit-ready logs for standardized exams.
Ready to upgrade your onboarding process? With Compliancely, automate business identity, ownership, and sanctions checks to keep teams audit ready!
