What is KYB?
KYB (Know Your Business) is the verification of a business entity — and of the people who control it — before onboarding it as a customer, merchant, seller or supplier. It is the corporate counterpart to KYC. In Indian regulation it is not a separate statutory label; it maps onto customer due diligence for legal persons, which includes identifying the entity, its authorised signatories and its beneficial owners.
KYB is harder than consumer KYC for a structural reason: a business is a layered object. Verifying the entity is not enough if the individuals behind it are hidden two holding companies deep, and verifying a director is not enough if that person cannot bind the entity.
What a KYB check typically covers
- Legal existence — registration details for a company or LLP against the corporate registry, or the applicable registration for a partnership, trust or proprietorship.
- Tax and statutory identifiers — the entity’s PAN, its GST registration where applicable, and MSME or Udyam registration where relevant.
- Registered and operating address — often the weakest link, since the registered office frequently differs from where the business actually trades.
- Controlling individuals — identity verification of directors, partners and the authorised signatory, using the same evidence standards as consumer KYC.
- Beneficial ownership — identifying natural persons holding ownership or control above the prescribed threshold, and unwinding intermediate holding structures.
- Bank account ownership — confirming the settlement account is held in the entity’s own name, not a director’s personal account.
- Screening — sanctions lists, PEP exposure among the controllers, and adverse media.
Where KYB is unavoidable
Payment aggregators and gateways onboarding merchants, marketplaces admitting sellers, lenders underwriting business borrowers, and any platform paying out to corporate counterparties all need it. The commercial motivation is simple: a fake or shell merchant is the standard vehicle for transaction laundering and for payout fraud, and the platform carries the loss.
The step most teams get wrong
Entity documents are easy to forge convincingly and easy to accept at face value. Ownership of the settlement bank account is not — it can be checked against the bank’s own records, and the name returned either matches the registered entity or it does not. Verifying the account is usually the single highest-value control in a merchant onboarding flow.
Related terms
- KYC (Know Your Customer)
- AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
- PEP (Politically Exposed Person)
- Name Match
- Penny Drop Verification
Verify it with Veriqos
Confirm that the entity’s settlement account and signatories are real:
- Bank Account Verification API — Instantly confirm the authenticity of any bank account with Veriqos’ Bank Account Verification API — account number, holder name, and status in real time.
- Penny Drop Verification API — Verify bank account ownership instantly with Veriqos’ Penny Drop Validation API, performing a secure ₹1 transaction to validate accounts in real time.
- Signature Match API — Veriqos Signature Validation API enables banks, insurance companies, and digital platforms to compare & verify signatures in seconds — checking similarity, flagging mismatches, and automating manual verification.
See how these checks are applied in E-commerce & Marketplaces, Fintech & Digital Lending.
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This entry explains how the check works in practice. It is general information, not legal or compliance advice — confirm current requirements against the applicable regulation.