💡 About this article This guide walks you through VerifiMe's Know Your Business (KYB) capabilities — from company registration verification and beneficial ownership identification through to AML/CTF screening and ongoing monitoring. If you would like to discuss your specific compliance requirements, please contact our team at [email protected]. |
Overview
Know Your Business (KYB) is a core component of VerifiMe's identity and compliance platform. VerifiMe enables you to verify business customers swiftly and accurately, drawing on live Australian business registry data (ASIC, ABR), global watchlist screening, and automated beneficial ownership (UBO) identification — all within a single, configurable platform.
Key Features at a Glance
Feature | What VerifiMe Does |
Company Verification | Verify Australian companies against ASIC in real time. Surface registration status, ACN, ABN, registered address, and officeholder details. |
Trust Verification | Collect and verify trust deed details, trustee identity, and settlor information in accordance with AML/CTF Rules 2025 requirements. |
SMSF Verification | Verify self-managed superannuation funds against ATO and ASIC records, including trustee and member identification. |
Beneficial Ownership (UBO) | Automated look-through logic identifies individuals holding 25% or more ownership or control, including via holding chains and discretionary trusts. |
PEP & Sanctions Screening | Screen business customers and their associated persons against global PEP lists, OFAC, UN, DFAT, and 100+ international sanctions and warning lists. |
Adverse Media | Screen against hundreds of millions of news and media articles to surface negative information associated with a business or its principals. |
Ongoing Monitoring | Optional continuous PEP/sanctions monitoring flags changes to a business customer's risk profile after onboarding. |
Identity Wallet (KYC) | Directors and UBOs can complete identity verification via VerifiMe's shareable identity wallet — verify once, reuse across multiple engagements. |
How It Works
VerifiMe's KYB flow operates across three stages:
1. Information Collection
When a business customer is added to VerifiMe — either via your team or through a self-service customer portal link — the platform collects:
• Legal business name and ACN / ABN
• Registered address and principal place of business
• Business structure type (company, trust, SMSF, partnership, sole trader)
• Trustee and settlor details (for trusts)
• Officeholder and UBO details (surfaced automatically where available from registry data)
Your onboarding flow can be configured to match your branding and risk appetite, including which fields are mandatory and at what stage UBO identity verification is triggered.
2. Verification and Enrichment
Once submitted, VerifiMe runs the relevant checks automatically:
• ASIC lookup confirms the company's registration status, registered office, and current officeholders
• ABR lookup confirms ABN status
• The platform surfaces the 'not beneficially held' ASIC flag where applicable, prompting enhanced CDD
• PEP and sanctions screening runs against the business entity and its associated persons
• Adverse media screening is conducted where enabled
• UBO identification logic applies the 25% ownership threshold with look-through across holding structures
Results are returned in real time and consolidated within the customer's record in the VerifiMe dashboard — replacing the manual work of sourcing information from multiple registries and screening databases.
3. Review, Risk Assessment, and Decision
After verification completes, your team has a consolidated view of all risk signals in one place:
• Automatic risk scoring based on your configurable rules engine
• Workflow triggers for enhanced due diligence where screening hits or elevated risk indicators are present
• Manual review capability with full audit trail for your AML/CTF compliance records
• Approval or rejection of the business customer, with decision rationale recorded
The platform's mitigation workflow builder allows you to document risk decisions and any enhanced CDD measures applied — creating a defensible compliance record for AUSTRAC purposes.
Beneficial Ownership Identification
Identifying the individuals who ultimately own or control a business is one of the most complex and time-consuming elements of KYB. VerifiMe's UBO Identification automates this process in accordance with Australia's AML/CTF Act and Rules 2025.
How UBO Identification Works
1. VerifiMe retrieves ASIC shareholder and officeholder data for the subject company.
2. Where a shareholder is itself a company, the engine looks through to the next layer of ownership.
3. This process repeats until natural persons holding 25% or more are identified, or the chain is exhausted.
4. For discretionary trusts, the trustee(s), settlor are captured; beneficiaries are treated as a class and appointer's checked
5. Identified UBOs are presented for KYC verification via VerifiMe's identity verification flow.
💡 Compliance note Where a company's shares are not beneficially held (i.e. held on behalf of another person), VerifiMe surfaces the ASIC 'not beneficially held' flag automatically and prompts enhanced CDD to identify the beneficial owner. This is consistent with the requirements under the AML/CTF Rules 2025. |
Getting Started
To begin verifying businesses in VerifiMe ciontact [email protected]
💡 Need help? If you have questions about configuring your KYB workflows, setting risk rules, or integrating VerifiMe , contact us at [email protected] |