Collect structured company inputs
Capture legal name, country, tax ID, registration number and address as separate fields.
CUSTOMER ONBOARDING & KYB
KYB verification for business customer onboarding.
Verify business customer identity with VAT, EIN and company-record checks. Build a clear KYB starting record for ownership, screening and onboarding review.
START WITHApplicant company + country + identifierREVIEWResolved legal entity + KYB starting record
Design the control around your systems and policy.Define countries, inputs, match rules, exceptions, evidence and delivery before integration.
Reviewed
THE PRACTICAL ANSWER
What is company verification in a KYB process?
Know Your Business, or KYB, starts by establishing which legal entity is applying for a service. Compare the applicant's name, country, registration number, address and VAT number or EIN with company evidence. VATFind supports this entity-resolution step. Use the selected company as the starting point for the ownership, screening, applicant-authority and risk checks required by your onboarding process.
- A business customer submits a VAT, EIN or registration number during onboarding.
- A trading name or group brand makes the contracting entity unclear.
- Several onboarding systems need the same governed legal-company record.
THE WORKFLOW
Company verification during customer onboarding
Resolve the company record
Use multiple identifiers to identify the most likely registered legal entity.
Create the KYB starting record
Return the company identifiers, address, status, source and retrieval context.
Continue wider due diligence
Use the resolved entity for ownership, sanctions, PEP, adverse-media and policy checks.
WHAT VATFIND DOES
VATFind verifies which legal company is associated with the VAT number or EIN.
VATFind takes the submitted identifier and country, matches it to a source-labelled company record, and returns the legal name, registration number, address, company context, source and retrieval time. The workflow receives an explicit match, discrepancy, ambiguity, no-match or unavailable state instead of a generic pass/fail answer.
Evidence meaning: a verified association means the submitted VAT number or EIN is linked to the returned company record. It is not, by itself, confirmation of current tax-registration status, tax compliance or approval of the wider transaction.
For API checks, use vat_number outside the US and tax_identifier for US EINs. Optional fields can be absent when a source does not provide them.
- 01Canonical legal name
- The registered entity used as the basis for subsequent KYB checks.
- 02Company identifiers
- VAT or tax ID and registration number kept as separate fields.
- 03Jurisdiction and address
- Country, region and registered-address context for disambiguation.
- 04Source-reported status
- Company status and incorporation details when the source supplies them.
- 05Evidence provenance
- The source and retrieval time attached to the identity result.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT APPROACH
KYB needs evidence about different subjects
Company identity
Identify the legal entity and jurisdiction. Reconcile the applicant's business identifiers and company-record fields.
People and ownership
Establish the relevant owners, controllers and people acting for that entity using the checks required by your process.
Risk decision
Bring the evidence together under the applicable policy. Record unresolved questions and who can approve the relationship.
CONTROL OWNERSHIP
Give each team one clear responsibility.
A reliable workflow names who owns the input, who interprets the company evidence and who makes the wider decision. That separation prevents a data result from becoming an unexplained approval.
KYB operations
Create the legal-company starting record for the due-diligence case.
Compliance policy
Define evidence, escalation and approval rules by market and risk tier.
Product engineering
Keep identity, ownership, screening and decision states technically separate.
DECISION DESIGN
Define the evidence and action at each stage.
| Stage | Evidence to retain | Controlled action |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant capture | Legal name, country, registration number, tax ID, address and applicant relationship. | Validate completeness and identifier type before external checks. |
| Legal-entity resolution | Source-labelled company record, match state, source and timestamp. | Confirm one entity or route ambiguity and field discrepancies to review. |
| Due diligence | Ownership, controllers, screening, operating and risk evidence from separate controls. | Assess the policy against the resolved company without collapsing results into one unexplained flag. |
EXAMPLE WORKFLOW
A business application uses a parent company's name
A sales-led onboarding case arrives under a group brand, while the contract will be with a subsidiary. Resolve the subsidiary's country and registration number and compare its submitted tax ID. Attach that local company to the case before ordering later checks. If the applicant supplies a parent record instead, request the missing subsidiary information. Keeping the entities distinct prevents the case from accumulating apparently complete evidence about the wrong business.
See the API requests and responsesIMPLEMENTATION CHECKLIST
KYB verification checklist
- Use one case ID to connect the submitted identity, resolved entity and later checks.
- Store each evidence source and timestamp independently.
- Define a no-match route that requests documents instead of assuming fraud.
- Require review when the applicant selects a different entity from the best match.
- Version the company evidence used in the final decision.
WHAT TO MEASURE
Prove the control is useful.
Track operating quality rather than claiming that a company match guarantees the downstream outcome.
- Straight-through entity resolution rate
- Cases delayed by missing or ambiguous identity
- Decisions with complete evidence provenance
READ THE RESULT CORRECTLY
Entity resolution is the start of KYB, not the whole decision.
VATFind establishes the company-record match. It does not by itself verify beneficial owners, controllers, sanctions exposure, operating activity, bank ownership or the applicant’s authority to act for the company.
Review data and limitationsFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
KYB verification questions
Where should company verification sit in the KYB process?
Place it near the start so the later ownership and risk checks run against the correct legal entity and jurisdiction.
Can a VAT number replace a company registration number?
No. They answer different questions and should remain separate fields. Using both improves entity resolution and exception handling.
What happens when no company is matched?
Treat no-match as an exception requiring corrected inputs, supporting documents or another authoritative source. Do not label the applicant fraudulent solely because no record was returned.
Does this replace ownership or sanctions checks?
No. It provides the legal-company starting point those checks require.
How is business verification different from customer due diligence?
Business verification establishes facts about the company, including its identity and registration context. Customer due diligence is the wider process of understanding the relationship and assessing the evidence required by policy and applicable obligations.
Should a KYB checklist treat a no-match as a rejection?
A no-match should trigger an investigation of the inputs and available coverage. Ask for stronger identifiers or supporting documents where appropriate. Record the eventual decision separately from the company-search outcome.