KYB Glossary

This glossary defines the core terms used across business verification (KYB), beneficial ownership, AML screening, and the Know Your Customer Limited API. Each term is defined in plain “X is…” form. For how the terms appear in the API, see the Guide; for common questions, see the FAQ.

Core concepts

KYB (Know Your Business): KYB is the process of verifying that a business is legally registered, in good standing, and identifying who owns and controls it. It is the corporate counterpart to KYC and is required when onboarding business customers under anti-money-laundering regulation.
KYC (Know Your Customer): KYC is the process of verifying an individual’s identity, typically by checking identity documents and screening the person against watchlists. In a KYB context, KYC is applied to a company’s owners and directors. In this API, KYC is an included complementary add-in to KYB.
KYB API: A KYB API is an application programming interface that performs business verification programmatically: company search, registry verification, beneficial-ownership resolution, document retrieval, and screening, through a set of endpoints. The Know Your Customer Limited KYB API does this live from official registries across 147 jurisdictions.
Business verification: Business verification is confirming that a company exists, is legally registered, and is in good standing, and establishing its key attributes such as status, address, officers, and ownership. It is a synonym for the verification step of KYB.
UBO (ultimate beneficial owner): A UBO is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a company. Regulators commonly set a threshold (for example 25% ownership or control under EU AML Directives and FATF guidance) above which an individual is treated as a beneficial owner.
Beneficial owner: A beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of ownership of a company even when title is held in another name, for example through a holding company or nominee. The ultimate beneficial owner is the natural person at the end of that chain.
Ownership structure (org-chart): An ownership structure, or org-chart, is the hierarchy of who owns whom in a company, from the operating entity up through any holding companies to the individuals at the top. In this API it is returned as a recursive tree of nested shareholders.
Recursive (multi-level) ownership: Recursive ownership is ownership traced through every layer of intermediate companies, rather than stopping at the first level of shareholders. It is how the ultimate beneficial owners are found when control runs through holding companies.

Screening terms

AML screening: AML (anti-money-laundering) screening is checking a business and the people associated with it against sanctions lists, politically-exposed-person lists, and adverse media to identify financial-crime risk. In this API it runs as part of the company case.
Sanctions screening: Sanctions screening is checking a party against government and international sanctions lists (such as those maintained by the UN, the EU, the US OFAC, and the UK) to determine whether dealing with them is prohibited or restricted.
PEP (politically exposed person): A PEP is an individual who holds, or has held, a prominent public position, and who therefore presents a higher risk of involvement in bribery or corruption, warranting enhanced due diligence. PEP screening checks parties against PEP lists.
Adverse media: Adverse media is negative information about a party found in news and other public sources, for example reports of fraud, financial crime, or regulatory action. Adverse-media screening surfaces such reports as part of risk assessment.
Enhanced due diligence (EDD): Enhanced due diligence is the deeper level of checks applied to higher-risk customers, such as PEPs or customers in high-risk jurisdictions, going beyond standard customer due diligence.
Simplified due diligence (SDD): Simplified due diligence is the lighter level of checks applied to lower-risk parties. In this API, minority shareholders below your shareholding threshold are screened and treated under simplified due diligence as deactivated steps.

Registry and data terms

Company registry: A company registry is the authoritative public record of legally registered businesses in a jurisdiction, maintained by a government body or statutory registrar (for example Companies House in the UK or ACRA in Singapore).
Company registry API: A company registry API is an interface that retrieves official company data directly from company registers. This API reads the register live at verification time.
Live registry data: Live registry data is company data fetched from the official register at the moment of verification, as opposed to data cached or aggregated from an earlier collection. It reflects the register’s current state with a link back to the source.
Aggregated data: Aggregated data is company data collected from registries and other sources in advance and served from a stored dataset. It can lag the live register and is one step removed from the authoritative source.
Registry document: A registry document is an original document issued or held by a company register, such as a registry extract, certificate of incorporation, or annual return. This API returns the fresh underlying registry documents themselves.
Registration number: A registration number is the unique identifier a registry assigns to a company. It is the reliable way to distinguish companies with similar names. In this API it is supplied in the externalCode field for an exact match.

Process and lifecycle terms

Perpetual KYB: Perpetual KYB is the practice of continuously monitoring a business customer after onboarding, instead of verifying once and re-reviewing only on a fixed cycle. It is also called continuous KYB or ongoing KYB monitoring.
Ongoing monitoring: Ongoing monitoring is the continuous re-screening of an onboarded customer for new sanctions, PEP, or adverse-media matches, raising alerts when the customer’s risk changes.
Case: In this API, a case is the unit of verification work. An entity (company) case represents a corporate customer being verified (KYB); an individual case represents a person being verified (KYC). Every case has a unique caseCommonId.
Case lifecycle: The case lifecycle is the sequence of statuses a case passes through as it is built asynchronously, from initialising through registry fetch, screening, and structure building, to the terminal status 3 (Ready).
Step: A step is one unit of verification work within a case, such as retrieving the registry record, collecting a document, or running AML. Each step has a caseStepId.
Deactivated step: A deactivated step (isDeactivated = true) is a step that does not require full verification, for example a minority shareholder below the shareholding threshold or a party already screened clear. It has still been screened against AML and sanctions lists and can be activated for full verification where required.
Prevalidation: Prevalidation is the API’s check of an uploaded document before you rely on it, returning messages (such as IdentityDocumentNotRecognized) that indicate whether the document is acceptable.
Audit-ready report: An audit-ready report is a PDF record of a completed case capturing the verified structure, the checks performed, and their outcomes, assembled for a compliance audit file. In the sandbox, reports are for evaluation only.
Sandbox: A sandbox is a free, non-production environment that replicates the live API contract for building and testing. This API’s sandbox is high-fidelity and pre-loaded with over 980 sample companies and individuals, with no live registry charges.