Which KYC APIs support fully automated KYC decisioning?
If you’re a company conducting KYC, you’re probably juggling too many vendors, too many manual reviews, and too many regulatory headaches. Onboarding is slow, costs keep climbing, and every new market or product seems to demand yet another tool.
Fully automated KYC decisioning changes that. By orchestrating data checks, document and biometric verification, sanctions screening, and risk routing in a single flow, you can increase straight-through approvals and still stay firmly within KYC/AML requirements.
Four well-known KYC APIs that support automated KYC decisioning are GBG, Entrust, Alloy, and Veriff. Here’s how they compare – and what to ask when choosing the right KYC API provider for your needs.
What does “fully automated KYC decisioning” actually mean?
Automated KYC decisioning goes beyond running individual checks via API. A platform that supports fully automated decisioning typically:
- Orchestrates multiple identity and risk checks in a single flow
- Applies configurable risk rules and thresholds
- Routes customers dynamically (approve, step up, hold, decline)
- Returns a final decision without human intervention
- Generates audit trails and evidence for regulators
This is especially important for regulated sectors such as financial services, fintech, payments, crypto, and lending, where accuracy matters as much as scalability and customer experience.
1. GBG
GBG is a digital identity verification company with 30+ years of experience in KYC, KYB, address verification, fraud protection, and more. GBG’s all-in-one identity solution, GBG Go, brings together global data, document and biometric verification, sanctions and PEP screening, and fraud controls in a single orchestrated platform.
With GBG Go, you can automate KYC and AML compliance worldwide, build adaptive workflows, and manage everything via a single API and intuitive UI.
Broad global coverage
- 80+ identity, fraud, and risk modules
- Coverage across 195+ countries
- Data, documents, biometrics, and risk signals in one platform
Single API with orchestration built in
- One API and UI to manage onboarding, re-verification, and ongoing screening
- Pre-built journey templates for common KYC and fraud use cases
Automated KYC decisioning
- Adjustable thresholds and routing rules
- Journeys can adapt by risk level, geography, product, or customer segment
Automated AML and sanctions screening
- Global and local sanctions lists
- PEP profiles and adverse media
- Reporting and audit trails aligned with regulatory expectations
Operational insight and optimization
- Performance dashboards and journey analytics
- Visibility into why customers were approved, stepped up, or declined
Proven scale
- 69 billion transactions processed annually
- 20,000+ customers globally
- 95% reported customer satisfaction
Entrust
Entrust secures the identity lifecycle, from identity-verified onboarding and card issuance to secure account access and digital transactions.
Key automated KYC capabilities
- Biometric identity verification to support anywhere-anytime digital onboarding.
- Document proofing to authenticate ID documents and automate verification.
- eKYC and device reputation checks to assess the integrity of a customer’s digital identity.
- Digital and physical card issuance minutes after account approval.
- No-code workflow builder (Studio) to drag-and-drop checks and signals into automated onboarding journeys, with audit logs and reports to support compliance.
Alloy
Alloy is an end-to-end identity and fraud prevention platform for financial institutions and fintechs. It focuses on automating and managing decisions for onboarding, ongoing fraud and AML monitoring, and credit underwriting.
Key automated KYC capabilities
- Automated digital onboarding with instant identity and document verification, designed to reduce manual reviews and increase approvals.
- Single API connection to 200+ data solutions with global coverage to support KYC, KYB, AML and fraud checks across more than 30 countries and additional markets.
- No-code workflow builder to create and modify decisioning rules, run step-up authentication, and integrate new vendors without engineering effort.
- Centralized dashboard for case management, alerts, decision audit trails, reporting, and testing tools (such as A/B and backtesting) to optimize policies.
Veriff
Veriff is an identity verification platform that provides automated KYC and AML checks via API that you can plug into your own decisioning engine. It combines AI-powered automation with human expertise to verify customers in seconds, detect deepfakes and support KYC and AML compliance at global scale.
Key automated KYC capabilities
- Identity and document verification, proof of address, database verification, age validation and AML screening to meet KYC requirements.
- Biometric authentication, selfie-based liveness detection and age estimation to verify genuine presence and protect minors.
- Fraud Protect and Fraud Intelligence for AI-powered, real-time fraud detection beyond document checks, using device, network and browser analytics.
- Global coverage with support for 12,000+ government-issued ID documents across 230+ countries and territories, in 48 languages and dialects.
Key questions to ask when choosing an automated KYC provider
When you’re comparing KYC APIs that support fully automated decisioning, it helps to ask questions such as:
- Can you automate end-to-end, or only parts of the journey?
- Which parts of KYC can be fully automated (data checks, documents, biometrics, watchlists, ongoing monitoring)?
- Can the platform return final pass/hold/decline outcomes, or does it rely heavily on manual review?
- Does the platform support static or dynamic orchestration?
- Can you route customers differently based on risk, geography, product or data quality?
- How easy is it to build and update those rules without heavy engineering support?
- What match rates and KYC conversion rates can you expect?
- Which data sources are used in each market, and how broad and deep is coverage?
- How does the provider help you improve pass rates over time (analytics, A/B tests, journey optimization)?
- How well does it support your target geographies?
- In which countries does the provider offer strong, locally relevant data sources?
- Will you need additional vendors to support future markets?
- How is compliance baked into the product?
- Which KYC/AML regulations and data privacy regimes are supported out of the box?
- Can you easily generate audit trails, reports and evidence for regulators?
- What does integration and ongoing maintenance look like?
- Are there well-documented APIs and SDKs, and how long do typical integrations take?
- How often are rules, templates and watchlists updated – and who maintains them?
- How configurable is the KYC flow?
- Can you tailor flows by product and risk level, adjust thresholds, and control when to trigger step-up checks?
- Does the solution support your branding and UX requirements across channels?
Final thoughts
GBG, Veriff, Entrust, and Alloy all offer APIs capable of supporting automated KYC decisioning. The real differences emerge once you look beyond individual checks and focus on orchestration, risk-based routing, global depth, and operational control.
For teams under pressure to scale onboarding, reduce manual reviews, and stay compliant across multiple markets, GBG Go offers end-to-end automated KYC decisioning, with 80+ KYC modules, dynamic routing, case management, and a sleek, user-friendly portal to boost customer onboarding experience.
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