Sumsub releases a complete guide to business verification highlighting compliance challenges

Sumsub, an all-in-one verification platform, today published its Complete Guide to Business Verification (KYB) for businesses in the fintech, banking, payment, crypto, e-commerce and gambling industries.

Business verification market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.81% and reach $348 million by 2028. Sumsub’s new guide will help companies tackle KYB-related compliance challenges across different jurisdictions and find best ways to build effective business verification workflows.

In 2021, 98% of B2B retailers, marketplaces, and manufacturers experienced financial losses due to fraud attacks. Fraud is on the rise in B2B industries. To stay safe and compliant, businesses need impeccable due diligence when it comes to their customers and partners. This means conducting proper background checks, clarifying companies’ ownership structure and identifying Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs), and much more. If these crucial steps are overlooked, governments can levy significant penalties. For example, Finanstilsynet, Norway’s financial regulator, fined DNB, the country’s largest lender, over $48 million in 2020 for due diligence failures and non-compliance with AML regulations. Earlier, DNB had been under investigation for allegations of transferring millions to a business customer’s shell companies.

In the guide, Sumsub’s team of compliance experts explains the process of a legal entity’s verification in great detail and shares customers’ best practices along with useful compliance tips—all intended to make it easier and safer for businesses to onboard companies as opposed to individuals.

Here are five key business verification trends highlighted in the guide:

• Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) verification remains one of the biggest KYB challenges due to jurisdictional loopholes;

• UBO status is now assigned with control of 10-25% of a business, depending on the jurisdiction, and it is required to be verified in accordance with AMLD5;

• While business verification rules are generally similar around the world, every country has its own compliance differences to be aware of. For example, in the U.S. business verification regulations exist as a result of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), but are enforced by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). While in countries like China only one institution, The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), regulates KYB;

• Using offshore islands and tax havens for fraud and money laundering is now a common occurrence. Investigations into bankruptcies, VAT frauds, and other illegal practices reveal “ghost firms” that perform illicit activities—so determining a company’s structure, ownership, purpose, and activity through due diligence procedures such as KYB is crucial;

• Sanction screening is becoming increasingly important as the geopolitical situation changes. Even non-regulated businesses like car sharing services or marketplaces should also screen for sanctions to ensure there are no restrictions in cooperating with a counterparty.

“Sumsub’s all-in-one verification platform includes onboarding of legal entities as well as traditional KYC checks, and this corresponds with the global demand to make business verification a meaningful part of the due diligence procedure. With access to the profiles of over 400 million companies and beneficiaries from registries across 220 countries and territories, it takes Sumsub only 3 hours to complete full-cycle KYB verification. As for the automated KYB check, it takes Sumsub as little as 3 minutes to perform. By embedding legal entity checks into their customer onboarding flows, companies safeguard their reputation and avoid potentially huge penalties from regulators. And Sumsub is ready to help these companies along the way by offering an advanced AI-based KYB solution coupled with global compliance expertise,” said Tony Petrov, CLO at Sumsub.