With 65% of organizations reporting a rise in fraud and 53% anticipating upcoming AI-driven tactics, Sumsub expands its automated business verification capabilities.
Sumsub has released the findings of its European KYB Benchmark Survey 2026, which reveals the extent to which manual verification is costing European firms clients. The findings arrive as Sumsub expands its Business Verification capabilities, including a new suite of features targeting the automation gaps the survey identifies: automated Company-Level Risk Scoring, automated periodic rechecks, and corporate document expiry tracking.
The survey, conducted in Q2 2026 among 154 compliance and risk professionals in banking, fintech, and digital assets sectors found that most respondents believe slow, largely manual onboarding is actively costing their businesses clients. With full automation still rare across the businesses surveyed, Sumsub’s new features are designed to close the gap between what compliance teams want to automate and what current data quality allows.
How onboarding delays drive direct client drop-off
The findings indicate that extended verification timelines are hindering client retention at European firms. For almost 60% of businesses, verifying a corporate client reportedly takes longer than a day, creating a procedural lag that triggers severe commercial fallout:
- 81% of businesses have lost potential clients due to onboarding delays,
- 80% state that current KYB processes actively slow down business growth,
- 59% admit that compliance complexity causes direct customer drop-off during onboarding.
One of the primary hurdles for achieving efficiency is the poor quality of corporate registry data. An overwhelming 99% of businesses encounter incomplete or unreliable company information during verification, with only 5% achieving full automation. As automated systems still require human input to resolve disputes, unreliable registry data significantly limits full automation.
Unified risk scoring engine simplifies complex corporate structure investigations
To resolve this friction, the new risk scoring solution calculates entity-level risk using custom or preset compliance rules. It aggregates ownership-weighted scores from all associated parties–including UBOs, shareholders, and directors–with risks automatically cascading across subsidiaries and parent companies. Visualizing this data directly inside the corporate structure diagram transforms complex ownership chains into clear, actionable workflows.
Corporate fraud impacts a majority of businesses
Equipping compliance teams with automated visualization tools has become critical as they confront an increasingly aggressive fraud landscape. Beyond basic data fragmentation, 65% of respondents report that fraud has risen over the last year. Furthermore, over half (53%) encountered KYB fraud directly last year–a threat landscape primarily driven by document forgery and fake identities of Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs) and directors.
These findings correlate with macro trends identified in recent industry publications. According to the Sumsub Identity Fraud Report, global identity fraud cases have more than doubled recently, with forged or altered documents accounting for approximately 50% of all fraud attempts. Looking ahead, 53% of professionals anticipate that battling AI-driven corporate fraud will be their biggest challenge over the next 2–3 years.
“The reality is that KYB is far from fully automated, and industry professionals recognize that AI cannot solve these persistent bottlenecks independently,” said Andrew Novoselsky, Chief Product Officer at Sumsub. “Teams want to automate, but they are blocked by inconsistent data and fraud that moves faster than manual review. We added new risk scoring and continuous monitoring tools to our platform to give teams the framework to make faster, clearer decisions. This allows enterprises to maintain rigorous compliance without losing legitimate clients to onboarding delays.”
To review the full data insights, regional breakdowns, and actionable compliance strategies, access the complete https://sumsub.com/business-verification-services/.
About the Survey
The European KYB Benchmark Survey 2026 was conducted in Q2 2026 to assess the current state of corporate verification across Europe. The study gathered insights from 150+ compliance and risk professionals working in banking, fintech, and enterprise sectors.
