How to build the ideal KYB onboarding process: A complete guide

What to consider to do KYB onboarding well

When KYB processes are slow and cumbersome, they become growth blockers that drive potential customers away, turning each abandoned sign-up into lost revenue.

But there are ways to turn KYB into a quick and seamless process that facilitates, rather than hurts, conversion:

1. Use biometrics, documents and data to automate identity verification

Manual KYB processes are highly resource-intensive: you spend hours cross-checking company data, human errors slow down operations, and businesses often need to submit additional documentation while enduring lengthy approval times.

There can be email tennis or cumbersome back-and-forth request for information, draining time and creating customer friction.

The result is slow onboarding that drives high drop-offs and forces you to pour resources into routine checks instead of more complex cases.

A lot of this can be automated, specifically:

• Business data verification: Automatically compare a company’s details against global corporate registries
• UBO and director discovery: Pull UBO and director data from your datasets without manual lookups
• Document authentication: Verify the received materials and assess a document’s quality and authenticity using automated fraud detection software.
• Biometrics: Match an individual’s ID to a live selfie to confirm they are present in real-time
• Screening: Continuously screen against PEPs, sanctions, and adverse media lists

For example, if you implement automated ID and biometric verification directly within the onboarding flow, directors don’t need to use another system to upload photos. On your end, your team doesn’t have to manually match photos to the applicant, and therefore the verification process is faster and more frictionless on both sides.

The key is to reduce manual effort like routine checks, but not overall control over the KYB process: you still get to make the important decisions, from setting risk thresholds to creating decisioning logic and overseeing compliance.

2. Create dynamic workflows based on entity type, jurisdiction and risk level

KYB often sees higher drop-off rates than KYC because the applicant needs to submit a much higher number of documents and checks.

Your KYB onboarding might also suffer because of fragmented processes that force UBOs and directors into separate systems, static flows that aren’t adapted to different entity types or jurisdictions, and unclear or missing explanations that might add further delays.

The best KYB onboarding flows are optimized for conversion by dynamically updating based on certain information, and requiring the user to fill in as little information as possible.

What you can do to customize your onboarding process:

• Configure your workflows based on factors like entity type, jurisdiction, and risk level. Only ask each customer for what is truly necessary. For instance, a company in the UK, where business information can be accessed via Companies House, might be able to move through a light-touch flow with company details pre-filled.
• Dynamically route customers through different steps based on risk-scoring. Low-risk entities can pass through with basic checks and pre-filled data, while higher-risk entities are routed to compliance for enhanced due diligence. This process can occur automatically and can be governed by your bespoke, dynamic risk score.
• Auto-populate known fields using databases, include instructions on what documents are needed (with examples), and allow for the delegation of tasks via assignment, so that directors and UBOs can securely complete their own steps in their own time. This also isolates a single task for a UBO to complete rather than asking them to complete the entire onboarding flow – you can ‘divide and conquer’ KYB tasks to drive faster onboarding times.
• Tailor your KYB onboarding to match your brand visuals and tone of voice. For example, customize page layouts, logos, colors, and email templates – to ensure a consistent customer experience throughout.

3. Connect to as many global data sources as possible to improve match rates and increase speed of onboarding

The more data sources you integrate with, the easier it is to verify essential business details and therefore have high STP and onboarding rates – without compromising on compliance.

But KYB data isn’t standardized worldwide. Each jurisdiction varies in corporate transparency, data formats, and access requirements. While the UK offers open access via Companies House, the Cayman Islands is an ‘opaque’ jurisdiction, requiring companies to declare only minimal information. And since the U.S. doesn’t have a central corporate registry, verification must often be done state by state, with formats and accessibility varying between each.

Without access to jurisdiction-specific data, you may have tried to piece information together by integrating multiple local data providers or relying on customers to submit extensive documentation. But this approach increases risk: incomplete data can lead to compliance gaps, such as unverified UBOs. It also slows down onboarding due to the constant back-and-forth between you and the customer.

What you can do to onboard faster, screen more accurately, and ensure global compliance:

• Avoid building your own integrations across jurisdictions. You’d need legal agreements with each data source and engineering resources to build several independent integrations. What’s more, you’d also have to normalize inconsistent data formats across registries. Overall, this route is very costly and time-consuming.
• Use a KYB provider with built-in access to global sources. Specialized KYB platforms already integrate with official business registries, UBO and shareholder databases, PEP and sanctions lists, identity document libraries, and more. This way, you get to access all the data you need – without having to build the system from scratch.

Looking to partner with a global KYB provider that offers unmatched data coverage? Book a call to learn more about GBG Detected, our all-in-one KYB product.

4. Make it easy for compliance to step in with case management

Even when you automate KYB onboarding, not every case is straightforward. More complex situations will always require manual review.

But without a single place to view all information for a specific case, compliance teams end up sifting through emails, spreadsheets, and scattered data just to get a more complete picture of each business.

This fragmentation increases the chance of human error and makes audits harder because you lack a clean, complete audit trail to show evidence of compliance.

What you can do to improve compliance operations:

• Log all decisions and information pertaining to each case in one place. This gives compliance teams a more structured way to investigate cases and prepare for audits. This log should be automated, with each action captured, whether it was performed by automation or a team member – and with the rationale or rule engine which created it.
• Let compliance teams configure escalation paths in your workflows. They can set risk thresholds and route customers for further reviews based on the results. Then they can assign specific cases to team members within the same system. Again, these actions can also be automated in accordance with your risk-based approach.

5. Simplify your tech stack by switching to an all-in-one KYB solution

Over time, you may have built a fragmented KYB system. You’ve added separate vendors for each onboarding element: one for document authentication, another one for biometrics. You might have also bolted on a variety of tools to fix issues as they arose, from spreadsheets to track onboarding progress to Slack for case communication and shared drives for document storage.

These short-term solutions create a fragmented system where data lives in silos, teams must switch between dashboards to make daily operations work, and you have to juggle multiple integrations, subscriptions, and contracts.

There is a better way: one that simplifies your tech stack while speeding up KYB onboarding.

What you can do to unify your KYB operations and technologies:

• Partner with a KYB solution that offers all the KYB elements you need, from biometrics to document authentication, business verification, and ongoing monitoring.
• Centralize your KYB operations. Let your compliance, sales, and ops teams work from a single source of truth so that data is consistent across departments, and keep all risk assessments, case statuses, and audit trails in one place.

To achieve both, many companies choose to partner with an automated end-to-end KYB provider: a solution that takes your customer from sign-up to approval with minimal friction while ensuring compliance.