Legal disclaimer
This notice applies to all the recipients of this document; please note that we reserve the right to alter and update it.
This notice is provided on an "as-is" basis and for general informational purposes only; none of its contents shall be interpreted as creating an attorney-client relationship. Sumsub shall not under any circumstances be held liable for any damages incurred as a result of actions taken or not taken based on the information contained in this document.
This document is a result of the work of our professionals and constitutes the intellectual property of Sumsub. It may not be disclosed, whether as-is or in any way modified, to any third party without prior authorization by Sumsub. In the event of such a disclosure, Sumsub shall be entitled to equitable relief under applicable law.
In accordance with Article 10 of the 2012 FATF AML Recommendations, legal entities must be identified in the following manner:
(a) Identifying and verifying the entity using reliable, independent source documents, data, or information;
(b) Identifying the beneficial owner and taking reasonable measures to verify the identity of the beneficial owner, such that the financial institution is satisfied that it knows who the beneficial owner is; this also includes understanding the ownership and control structure of the entity.
Know Your Business (KYB) service
We provide identification and verification of legal entities as customers and assist in their KYB process for our clients. In order to identify and verify the entity, we usually collect the required information about the entity, such as business name, type of legal entity, registry code, details and address of the entity, as well as names of entities managers and owners (UBOs). This information may be provided via an officially-issued document or questionnaires. This flow is fully customisable and depends on the client's requirements.
The provided information is subject to screening against government databases where available and sanction lists, PEPs lists and other databases if it is included in scope of service.
These checks do not make any final decisions on whether to onboard a given legal entity. Such decisions are made by the Customer at their own discretion.
The average time of completing the FULL KYB checks with the involvement of Sumsub team normally does not exceed 24 hours. In rare cases, the verification could take up to 72 hours.
The average time of completing automated checks normally does not exceed 3 minutes.
In order to identify and verify the entity under the applicable laws, Sumsub usually collects the following information about the entity:
For KYB purposes, a beneficial owner is the individual who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity through direct or indirect ownership of a sufficient percentage of the shares or voting rights or ownership interest in that person, including through bearer shareholdings, or through control via other means.
Direct ownership is a manner of exercising control whereby the beneficial owner holds a shareholding of 25 (in some jurisdictions, 10) percent plus one share or an ownership interest of more than 25 (in some jurisdictions, 10) percent in a company.
Indirect ownership is a manner of exercising control over a company through another company or multiple companies in the same proportion. Where, after all, possible means of identification have been exhausted, the beneficial owner cannot be identified, and there is no doubt that such a person exists, or where there are doubts as to whether the identified person is a beneficial owner, the natural person who holds the position of a senior managing official is deemed as a beneficial owner. We identify and verify the ultimate beneficial owner as an individual.
By default, Sumsub requests a bundle of documents that confirm the legal existence and corporate details of the company and enable establishing the ownership and control structure.
Until the Questionnaire is completed, Sumsub will perform KYB verification following the rules below. Please see the Questionnaire here.
The provided documents must, in any event, contain the company's name, registration number, legal form (type), address, and date of incorporation.
The documents Sumsub normally accepts in order to establish the beneficial ownership and control structure of a legal entity include:
Where one of the above documents cannot be provided for reasons related to jurisdictions or legal entity types, an analogous document is requested as an alternative by default.
To ensure KYB checks and reduce these risks, the verification of corporate documents includes the following steps:
To ensure that Sumsub conducts due diligence of legal entities (KYB) in accordance with your company's AML policy and procedures, we require completing the Questionnaire before proceeding. Completing the Questionnaire will help meet regulatory compliance requirements and enhance the usability of Sumsub for you and your customers.
By default, Sumsub accepts documents with the following criteria:
By default, Sumsub uploads printouts/screenshots or extracts corporate documents from the state corporate registry, if available, to the application and doesn’t request additional documents.
Please note that if the registry has a filing history and data can be pulled automatically, Sumsub only indicates the registry's name in the "Source" field without uploading screenshots.
Individuals who must pass an identity verification (KYC) procedure
If the level settings from the dashboard include UBOs, by default, all ultimate beneficial owners (natural persons owning, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the company or otherwise exercising significant control over it) have to pass the identity verification (KYC) procedure.
The company’s senior managing official has to pass the identity verification (KYC) procedure in case there are no ultimate beneficial owners who own, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the Company.
Sumsub accepts an extract from the UBO registry or another similar document disclosing all the UBOs of the company and doesn’t verify all the structure, if the flow settings include only the UBOs step.
If the level settings from the dashboard include representatives, by default, the "representatives" step is not required. However, if the application has the "representatives" step and the requirements weren't specified, Sumsub will identify any representative, such as a director/board member/CEO, etc, or a natural person so authorized by power of attorney.
If the level settings from the dashboard include directors, by default, the "directors" step is not required. However, if the application has the “directors" step and the requirements aren't specified, Sumsub will identify any natural person that holds a director’s position.
If the level settings from the dashboard include shareholders (not UBOs), by default, the "shareholders" step for individuals is not required. However, if the application has the "shareholders" step and the requirements weren't specified, Sumsub will identify all the shareholders owning, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the Company.
If the parent/intermediate company undergoes the KYB procedure, the parent or intermediate company will be created with the level (company_zero) that includes 2 required documents that allows to establish an ownership structure and corporate details of the company. If you need a more complicated review of the parent or intermediate company, please set up the required level in the dashboard.
If the corporate structure includes nominee shareholders, they do not have to pass the identity verification (KYC) procedure.
By default, Sumsub verifies the following natural and legal persons:
Sumsub can verify a beneficiary child under the age of 16-18. All other names of beneficiaries below the age of 16 will be recorded in notes without the KYC procedure.
The documents we normally accept in order to verify it:
By default, Sumsub makes corrections where an applicant fills in an outdated company name or a minor (1-2 digits/letters) error in the company number (as demonstrated by a publicly available state registry or the attached documents). Likewise, the country field changes to the correct option according to the submitted documents. If the applicant does not fill in the registration number field or company name field, Sumsub makes fields according to the submitted documents by default.
If the EIN Number (for USA applicants) or any other secondary company-related numbers were indicated in the “Registration number” line, Sumsub indicates the primary registration number in accordance with the attached documents.
If the applicant does not fill the registration number field or company name field, or jurisdiction, Sumsub completes fields according to the submitted documents by default.
Sumsub removes such applicants from the corporate structure to speed up the verification. Also, we leave their applicant IDs in the notes.