Learn
Plain-language explainers on how identity is verified, the technology behind it, and what it means for privacy.
Identity verification 101
Customer Due Diligence (CDD): The Four Core Requirements Explained
Customer due diligence is the baseline anti-money-laundering process for establishing who a customer is, why they need a relationship and what level of monitoring is appropriate.
FATF Grey List and Black List Explained
FATF’s grey and black lists identify jurisdictions with serious anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing weaknesses. They affect how banks, payment firms and other regulated businesses assess country risk and apply customer checks.
How Online Identity Verification Works, Step by Step
Online identity verification combines document analysis, biometric checks and screening data to decide whether a person is likely genuine and eligible for a service. The exact steps vary by provider, country, risk level and the document presented.
Identity Assurance Levels Explained (NIST 800-63)
NIST Special Publication 800-63 separates confidence in a person’s identity, their login method and federated sign-in transactions. Its assurance levels help organizations match verification and authentication controls to the harm a mistaken decision could cause.
KYC, KYB and AML: What They Mean and How They Differ
KYC verifies individual customers, KYB verifies businesses and their owners, and AML is the wider legal framework for detecting and preventing illicit finance.
MLROs and BSA Officers: Who Is Accountable for AML Compliance
MLROs and BSA officers lead anti-money-laundering reporting and controls, but their legal duties differ by jurisdiction. Both need authority, independence and direct access to senior management because compliance accountability cannot be treated as a back-office task.
Onboarding vs Ongoing Verification
Onboarding verifies who a customer is at the start of a relationship. Ongoing verification keeps that identity, risk profile and activity under review as circumstances and threats change.
Sanctions Lists Explained: OFAC, UN, EU and UK
Sanctions lists identify people, entities, vessels and, through country or regional programmes, jurisdictions subject to trade and financial restrictions. Effective screening requires matching the lists and rules that apply to a firm’s locations, customers, transactions and currencies.
Ultimate Beneficial Owners: What a UBO Is and How to Identify One
An ultimate beneficial owner, or UBO, is the real person who ultimately owns or controls a business. Identifying UBOs is a core part of KYB due diligence, but layered companies, nominees and trusts can make the task difficult.
What Is Identity Verification?
Identity verification is the process of establishing that a person is who they claim to be. It combines evidence, checks and risk decisions to help organizations prevent fraud, meet obligations and provide services safely.
What Is KYB? Know Your Business Verification Explained
KYB, or Know Your Business, verifies that a company is legitimate and identifies the people who own or control it. It is a core anti-money laundering control for regulated firms onboarding business customers.
What Is Money Laundering? How It Works, With Examples
Money laundering is the process of disguising criminal proceeds as legitimate funds or assets. It relies on financial channels, companies and identities that can obscure who controls money and where it came from.
What Is RegTech? Technology for Regulatory Compliance Explained
RegTech, or regulatory technology, applies software, data tools and automation to compliance work. It can make controls faster and more consistent, but firms remain accountable for their regulatory decisions and data practices.
Methods & technology
AI in KYC and AML: Where It Helps and Where It Falls Short
AI can make KYC and AML work faster and more consistent, but it does not remove accountability. Its value depends on reliable data, tested controls and human judgment in high-impact decisions.
AML Screening: Customers, Payments and Transactions
AML screening is the set of checks financial institutions use to identify sanctions, political-exposure and negative-news risks in customers and payments. It supports risk decisions, but requires accurate data, clear review processes and appropriate list coverage.
Biometric Verification and Liveness Detection
Biometric verification compares a person’s face or other trait with a claimed identity, while liveness detection helps determine whether the sample comes from a present human rather than a spoof. The technology can reduce fraud, but its accuracy, fairness and privacy implications require careful controls.
Deepfake Detection in Identity Verification
Deepfakes have made identity verification a higher-value target for fraudsters. Effective defenses combine liveness checks with controls that detect synthetic media injection, assess device signals and continuously adapt to new attack methods.
Document Verification: How ID Document Checks Work
Document verification assesses whether an identity document is genuine, intact and readable, using images, document data and, where available, an NFC chip. It is a core IDV control, but it cannot by itself prove that the presenter is the document holder.
KYC Automation: What Can Be Automated and What Still Needs People
KYC automation can speed routine customer due diligence, but it does not remove a regulated firm’s responsibility to understand risk. The most effective programs automate repeatable checks and route ambiguous or high-risk cases to trained reviewers.
Open Banking and Identity Verification
Open banking can add bank-account evidence to identity verification, but it is not a universal replacement for document, biometric or database checks. Its value depends on consent, data quality, market coverage and the risk of the transaction.
Perpetual KYC: From Periodic Reviews to Continuous Monitoring
Perpetual KYC replaces reliance on fixed review dates with event-driven monitoring that keeps customer due diligence current. It can improve risk visibility, but depends on sound data, effective alert handling and proportionate privacy controls.
Sanctions Screening: How Firms Check Customers Against Sanctions Lists
Sanctions screening compares customers, counterparties and payment parties with official sanctions data, then investigates potential matches. Effective programs combine reliable identity data, ownership checks and jurisdiction-specific escalation procedures.
Fraud & threats
AML Red Flags: The Warning Signs Compliance Teams Watch For
AML red flags are warning signs that can point to possible money laundering, terrorist financing, or other financial crime. They trigger proportionate review and documentation, not an automatic conclusion that a customer or transaction is illegal.
Account Takeover Fraud: How It Happens and How It Is Stopped
Account takeover fraud occurs when a criminal takes control of an existing legitimate account. It commonly starts with stolen credentials or a weak recovery process, then escalates into theft, fraud or money laundering.
Business Email Compromise: How Impersonation Scams Work
Business email compromise uses trusted-looking messages to divert payments or obtain sensitive data. Strong payment controls, independent verification and account security can reduce the risk, including as AI makes impersonation more convincing.
Correspondent Banking and AML: Why Nested Accounts Are High Risk
Correspondent banking gives banks access to foreign currencies and payment systems, but it can obscure the identity and risk profile of underlying customers. Nested relationships and payable-through accounts intensify that challenge and require rigorous due diligence.
FRAML: Why Fraud and AML Teams Are Converging
FRAML brings fraud prevention and anti-money laundering into a more connected operating model. The approach can uncover linked criminal activity and reduce duplicate work, but it requires careful governance to preserve regulatory duties and specialist expertise.
Presentation Attacks: How Biometric Spoofing Works and How Detection Stops It
Presentation attacks use a fake face or other biometric at the point of capture to mislead a sensor. Presentation attack detection helps identify those spoofs, but teams also need controls for injected media and compromised devices.
Shell Companies: Red Flags and How They Hide Who Is in Charge
Shell companies can serve lawful corporate purposes, but their thin operations and opaque ownership can also conceal the people controlling funds and assets. Effective KYB combines company data, beneficial ownership verification and transaction context.
Structuring and Smurfing: How Criminals Dodge Reporting Thresholds
Structuring and smurfing are methods used to conceal cash activity from financial institutions and regulators. In the United States, structuring can be a crime even if the underlying money comes from a lawful source.
Trade-Based Money Laundering Explained
Trade-based money laundering uses legitimate-looking trade transactions to move or disguise the value of criminal proceeds. Detecting it requires banks, customs authorities and businesses to compare trade documents with commercial reality.
Types of Financial Fraud: The Schemes Behind the Losses
Financial fraud takes many forms, but most schemes begin with a stolen or invented identity, a compromised account, or a victim persuaded to act. This guide maps the major types, the warning signs, and the role of identity verification in prevention.
Guides
Customer Onboarding in Financial Services: Best Practices for Fast, Compliant KYC
Customer onboarding is the process that turns an applicant into a customer with a usable financial account. Effective programs balance proportionate identity and financial-crime checks with a low-friction experience for legitimate people and businesses.
Customer Risk Assessment: How KYC Risk Ratings Are Built
A customer risk assessment turns information collected during know-your-customer checks into a documented, proportionate view of money laundering and fraud risk. It determines the level of due diligence, monitoring and review applied over the customer relationship.
How to Choose AML Screening Software
AML screening software should be assessed on the quality and timeliness of its data, the accuracy and tunability of its matching, and its ability to support defensible decisions over the full customer and payment lifecycle.
How to Choose Fraud Detection Software
Fraud detection software should be selected against the attack types, customer journey and risk tolerance that matter to your business. A disciplined evaluation uses representative data, measurable outcomes and controls for privacy, explainability and operational fit.
How to Choose KYC Software
Choosing KYC software is a risk, operations and data-governance decision, not just a document-checking purchase. Define the compliance scope, test vendors on representative traffic, and measure outcomes against your own risk policy and costs.
How to Choose a Document Verification Service
Choosing document verification is not simply a question of supported IDs or a headline accuracy score. Buyers should test coverage, fraud controls, user experience, data handling and operational fit on representative real traffic before signing a contract.
KYB Due Diligence: How Businesses Are Verified, Step by Step
Know Your Business due diligence verifies that a corporate customer exists, identifies who controls it and assesses financial crime risk. The process combines reliable records, identity checks, screening, risk decisions and ongoing review.
Simplified Due Diligence: When Lighter Checks Are Allowed
Simplified due diligence allows proportionate reductions in customer checks when a firm can show the money laundering and terrorist financing risk is low. It does not mean no due diligence, and it must be supported by documented risk assessment and ongoing monitoring.
Suspicious Activity Reports: When and How They Are Filed
A suspicious activity report is a confidential filing used by regulated firms to alert financial intelligence authorities to suspected financial crime. Its value depends on timely submission, a specific narrative and strict controls against tipping off customers.