KYB API for Payments
Payment companies and PSPs must verify every merchant they onboard, identify the people behind the business, and keep monitoring them for the life of the relationship. The Know Your Customer Limited KYB API verifies merchants live from official registries across 147 jurisdictions, resolves beneficial ownership, screens the entity and its owners for AML, and monitors continuously, so a payments business can onboard merchants globally and meet its scheme and regulatory obligations from one integration.
Why do payment companies need a KYB API?
Payment service providers, acquirers, and platforms carry direct responsibility for the merchants they board: they must confirm each merchant is a real, active business, identify its ultimate beneficial owners, and screen for sanctions and other risk, under both regulatory rules (FATF, EU AML Directives) and card-scheme requirements. Merchant onboarding is high-volume and often cross-border, so manual verification does not scale. A KYB API automates merchant verification and keeps it consistent and auditable across every market a PSP operates in.
What does a payments KYB API need to do?
A KYB API for payments needs to:
- Verify merchants at volume, programmatically, with live registry data.
- Resolve the merchant’s UBOs, including through holding companies, because scheme and AML rules require knowing who is behind the merchant.
- Screen the entity and its UBOs and directors for sanctions, PEP, and adverse media as part of the case.
- Cover cross-border merchants, including APAC and offshore, from one integration.
- Monitor merchants continuously for sanctions hits and material changes after boarding.
The Know Your Customer API delivers all of this through the same company case used for onboarding.
How does the Know Your Customer KYB API help payment companies?
| Payments pain point | How the API addresses it |
|---|---|
| High-volume merchant boarding | Programmatic verification through predictable endpoints |
| Cross-border and APAC merchants | 147 jurisdictions from one integration |
| Scheme requirement to know the UBO | Recursive, multi-level UBO org-chart from live registry data |
| Sanctions and PEP exposure on merchants | AML screening of the entity and its owners, built into the case |
| Merchant risk changing after boarding | Perpetual KYB: continuous monitoring, alerts, and review dates |
| Audit and scheme reporting | Original registry documents and an audit-ready report per merchant |
How do I onboard and monitor a merchant via API?
You board a merchant the same way you verify any company: search for the business, create the case, poll until ready, and read the verified entity and ownership. You then screen the merchant and its UBOs, clear any hits, generate the audit-ready report, and set a review date so the merchant stays under perpetual KYB monitoring. New sanctions, PEP, or adverse-media matches against the merchant or its owners raise alerts you can action, so a merchant that becomes risky after boarding does not slip through. The endpoints are in the Guide.
Can I test merchant verification for free?
Yes. The free sandbox at https://api.knowyourcustomer.dev is a high-fidelity, contract-faithful replica of the standard KYC platform, pre-loaded with over 980 sample companies and individuals, so your engineers can build and test the full merchant-boarding and monitoring flow before any commercial commitment. Access is self-serve through the sign-and-provision access flow. Moving to production is a base-URL and credentials change, because the contract is identical.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best KYB API for payment companies? One that verifies merchants at volume from live registry data, resolves UBOs, screens for AML, and monitors continuously across many jurisdictions. The Know Your Customer API does this across 147 jurisdictions.
Does it resolve the merchant’s beneficial owners? Yes. Ownership is returned as a recursive, multi-level org-chart, traced through holding companies to the individual UBOs.
Does it cover cross-border and APAC merchants? Yes. Coverage spans 147 jurisdictions with deep APAC and global breadth from one integration.
Does it keep monitoring merchants after boarding? Yes. Perpetual KYB monitoring raises alerts on new screening matches, with scheduled review dates.
Can I test it before paying? Yes. The free, high-fidelity sandbox lets you build the whole flow before commercial onboarding.