KYB API for Banks
The best KYB API for a bank verifies corporate customers against live official registry data, resolves the full beneficial-ownership tree, screens the entity and its owners for AML, and keeps them under monitoring, all to an auditable standard. The Know Your Customer Limited KYB API does this across 147 jurisdictions from a single integration, so a bank can onboard corporate and cross-border customers without stitching together a registry vendor, a UBO vendor, and a screening vendor.
Why do banks need a KYB API?
Banks must verify the legal existence, status, ownership, and risk of every corporate customer they onboard, under customer-due-diligence obligations set by the FATF recommendations and, in the EU, the Anti-Money-Laundering Directives. Doing this manually means pulling registry extracts by hand, tracing ownership through holding companies across borders, and running separate screening, which is slow, inconsistent, and hard to audit. A KYB API turns that into a few programmatic calls with a recorded audit trail, so onboarding is faster and the evidence is defensible.
What should a bank’s KYB API do?
A bank-grade KYB API should:
- Read live from the official register, so the customer’s status and ownership reflect the record now, with a link back to the source.
- Resolve beneficial ownership recursively, tracing control through every layer of holding companies down to the individual UBOs, not just the first-level shareholders.
- Return the original registry documents for the audit file, not only parsed fields.
- Screen the entity and its UBOs and directors for sanctions, PEP, and adverse media as part of the case.
- Cover the jurisdictions the bank actually onboards in, including cross-border and offshore.
- Monitor continuously after onboarding, with alerts and scheduled review dates.
The Know Your Customer API does all of this through one resource, the case.
How does the Know Your Customer KYB API help banks?
| Bank pain point | How the API addresses it |
|---|---|
| Cross-border corporate onboarding | 147 jurisdictions from one integration, deep APAC and global breadth |
| Tracing complex ownership | Recursive, multi-level UBO org-chart from live registry data |
| Audit and examiner scrutiny | Original registry documents plus an audit-ready PDF report per case |
| Sanctions and PEP exposure | AML screening of the entity and its UBOs and directors, built into the case |
| Risk drift after onboarding | Perpetual KYB: continuous monitoring, alerts, and review dates |
| Vendor sprawl | Registry data, UBO, documents, AML, and monitoring in one API |
How do banks onboard a corporate customer end to end?
A bank onboards a corporate customer in one connected flow: search for the company, create the case, poll until ready, read the verified entity and ownership, verify the individual UBOs and directors with the included KYC add-in, review and clear any AML hits, generate the audit-ready report, and set a review date for ongoing monitoring. Because identity verification (KYC) on the people behind the business is included, the bank verifies the company and its controllers without a separate IDV contract. The full sequence is in the Guide.
Is it suitable for virtual and digital banks?
Yes. Virtual and digital banks onboard at scale and need verification that is fast, programmatic, and global from day one. The free, high-fidelity sandbox lets a digital bank’s engineers build and test the entire corporate-onboarding journey before any commercial commitment, then move to production by changing the base URL and credentials. The included sample onboarding web app is a working reference of exactly the journey a bank’s own developers would build.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best KYB API for banks? A KYB API that combines live registry data, recursive UBO, source documents, built-in AML, broad jurisdiction coverage, and continuous monitoring. The Know Your Customer API provides all of these across 147 jurisdictions.
Does it cover cross-border and APAC onboarding? Yes. Coverage spans 147 jurisdictions with deep APAC depth and global breadth from a single integration.
Is it auditable for examiners? Yes. Each case returns the original registry documents and an audit-ready PDF report, with a recorded audit trail of actions.
Can a bank test it before committing? Yes. The free sandbox is a high-fidelity, contract-faithful replica of the standard KYC platform, with over 980 sample companies and individuals.
Does it include screening on owners and directors? Yes. AML screening of the entity and its UBOs and directors is part of the company case.