KYB — Know Your Business — is the corporate cousin of KYC. Every regulated financial institution runs it, and most rejections happen for boring, avoidable reasons.
This is the exact checklist our onboarding team wishes every applicant would follow before hitting submit.
The company file
- Certificate of incorporation, dated and stamped
- Memorandum & Articles of Association (or equivalent constitutional document)
- Certificate of good standing, if the company is older than 12 months
- Current commercial license or trade license (for jurisdictions that issue one)
- Register of directors, dated within the last 30 days
- Register of shareholders with percentages
For every UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner)
Anyone holding 25% or more, directly or indirectly, is a UBO. If your ownership routes through a holding company, you'll need to document each layer.
- Government-issued photo ID (passport preferred)
- Proof of address dated within the last 3 months (utility bill, bank statement)
- A short bio and role in the business
Business substance
Underwriters want to see that the business is real. A landing page, one customer contract, a payment processor summary, or a set of bank statements from an existing account are all excellent signals.
The rejection killers
- Ownership routed through opaque nominee structures
- Business models that touch restricted industries without matching licensing
- Documents in a language other than English without a certified translation
- Mismatch between the address on ID and the address on utility bills
"Compliance teams are not the enemy. They are the reason your money is safe once it's in the account. Meet them halfway."
#KYB#Compliance#Onboarding
RA
Rashid Al-Mansoori
Writing on compliance at ASHASH
