KYB (know your business)
KYB (know your business) is the due diligence a regulated firm carries out on a business customer before providing payment services: confirming the company exists, identifying its directors and beneficial owners, and assessing its risk. In the UK it follows the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.
Before a business can accept payments, the regulated party has to know who it is dealing with. UK money laundering rules require customer due diligence: identify the customer, verify the identity from reliable sources, identify any beneficial owner, and understand the purpose of the relationship. For a company that means a Companies House check, the directors, anyone holding more than 25% of the shares or voting rights, and sometimes bank account verification and proof of what the business sells.
For a software platform this is the first thing a customer meets when payments are built in, and the point where most in-product onboarding flows lose people. The regulated acquiring partner sets what has to be collected; the platform decides how and when to ask. A flow that collects the registered company number early and lets the partner fill in the public record collects less from the customer. A flow that asks everything up front, in one form, before the customer has seen any value, does not get finished.
What to watch: sole traders and partnerships have no Companies House record and need different evidence; a customer whose ownership sits in a trust or overseas entity takes longer; and KYB is not once only, as the partner will refresh it when risk or volume changes.