What is the difference between KYB and KYC checks?

Quickly understand the main differences between Know your Business and Know your Customer checks and how to carry them out.

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What does KYB (Know Your Business) mean?

Know Your Business (KYB) checks allows a business to check that they are working with other legitimate businesses. When running a KYB check, you can identify the validity of a business by checking addresses, running Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBO) checks, along with Anti-Money laundering (AML) checks. Using Creditsafe, you can access our global business data with information on more than 365 million businesses around the world, including director information and shareholder information. 

KYB ties in with current AML laws and regulations, including the most recent 6th Anti-Money Laundering directive (6AMLD).

KYB Process

What does KYC (Know Your Customer) mean?

Know Your Customer (KYC) checks primarily have two purposes. The first is to help businesses manage their risk when onboarding new clients or existing customers who may use the business’s products or services for money laundering purposes. The second is to adhere to obligations under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. 

Know Your Customer (KYC) checks can be used for age verification, travel checks, employee checks and many more, leaving no footprint during the process. You can streamline your PEPs & Sanction compliance with instant online checks, which screen against a multitude of global and domestic databases in one go.

KYC Process

How does the KYB process work with KYC?

The main differences between KYC & KYB are their purpose when it comes to verification. KYC allows businesses to verify the identity of clients (individuals). KYB checks verify the legality of the business and their owners by using UBO and AML checks. Due to the 6AMLD, the scope of what businesses need to run KYB & KYC checks has dramatically expanded out to other industries, rather than just financial organisations. 

However, KYB checks naturally falls into your KYC checks too. What they both do together is allow for verification of specific data points. For example, confirmation of VAT numbers and bank details. 

How to conduct KYC and KYB verification checks?

Creditsafe can help with both KYC & KYB checks. Whilst many businesses still identity check manually, Creditsafe can offer an automated tool with our electronic ID Verification. Creditsafe ID Verification complies with all standard Know Your Customer (KYC) practices, which are a legal requirement for a number of high risk industries. We build over 300 data sets into our KYC checks (such as electoral roll, telephone directory and birth index register), allowing you to speed up your verification process whilst being confident that you are adopting a strong approach to risk and fraud prevention. 

Creditsafe can also help automate your KYB checks using our Connect API. This can help improve your customer experience whilst reducing drop-off rates with accurate and efficient compliance checks.

 

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Simplify your KYC and KYB process

Watch our webinar to understand how IDScan can transform your Know your Customer (KYC) and Know your Business (KYB) process.

Learn how IDScan technology is helping businesses across all sectors maintain high levels of compliance and due diligence when faced with the prospect of onboarding clients remotely.