Know Your Business (KYB)

KYB verifiesthat a business exists, is legitimate, and is not being used to facilitate crime. Core steps include validating legal name, registration number, and status with corporate registries; identifying ownership/control (UBOs); confirming officers/directors; and screening entities and principals against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media lists. Programs risk-rate by industry, geography, and product, applying enhanced due diligence to higher-risk cases (e.g., shell risks, nominees, secrecy jurisdictions).Supporting artifacts include formation documents, EIN/PAN, tax filings, licenses, and proof of operating address. Modern KYB augments registries with data enrichment, graph/link analysis, and ongoing monitoring to catch changes in ownership or negative news. Good KYB is documented, auditable, and integrated with onboarding orchestration and transaction controls, reducing false positives, correspondent-banking friction, and regulatory exposure.