KYB data

KYB (know your business) data verifies that a company exists, is active, and is controlled by the people it claims. Banks, payment providers, marketplaces, B2B lenders and procurement teams use it to onboard business customers and suppliers and to meet anti-money laundering obligations.

Typical fields

• Legal name, registration number and jurisdiction
• Status (active, dissolved, in liquidation) and incorporation date
• Registered address and legal form
• Directors, officers and authorized signatories
• Shareholders and ultimate beneficial owners with ownership percentages
• Industry codes and filings such as articles or annual accounts

Sources and collection

KYB data comes mainly from official company registries, beneficial ownership registers where they are accessible, gazettes and filings. Access rules differ sharply: some registries publish open bulk data, others charge per document, and public access to some beneficial ownership registers has been restricted. Providers either query registries live or maintain local copies, and build ownership graphs from shareholder filings.

Delivery and pricing

Usually offered as an API with per-lookup pricing for onboarding flows, plus monitoring of status and officer changes. Bulk files may be available where registries publish open data. Price drivers include country coverage, document retrieval, beneficial ownership depth and monitoring.

Before you buy

• Ask whether each lookup is live from the registry or served from a cache, and how old the cache can be.
• Check country coverage and which fields are available in each country.
• Confirm how beneficial ownership is derived where no public register exists.
• Ask for source documents or registry links for your audit trail.
• Test on companies with complex, multi-country structures.