The Platform PM

Glossary and sources

Field Guide

Identity and trust: KYB, KYC and ongoing monitoring

10

Glossary and sources

7 min read · Chapter 10 of 10

Words that mean something else here

TermWhat you'd assumeWhat it means here
Good standingThe company is legitimateIts filings and state taxes are current; nothing more. A status check isn't a certificate of good standing
ActiveDoing businessIn a registry: not dissolved. From a vendor: found. On your platform: can move money
VerifiedSomeone checked itUsually a vendor matched it to a source, which may itself be self-declared. In the UK since November 2025, a verified director is a legal status
Beneficial ownerSomeone who owns a stakeIn the US, also one control person who may own nothing. UBO is industry slang for the person at the top
KYBA legal requirementAn industry term. The law says customer due diligence (US) or client identification (Canada)
KYCAn ID checkTo regulators: identity plus understanding what the customer does and why
Customer (US bank rules)Whoever opens the accountFor a business account, the business; the person signing isn't a "customer" for identification purposes
Shell companyA fraudA company with no operations, often legal. In money-laundering talk: one used to hide owners
Registered agentThe company's officeThe address for legal papers, often shared by thousands of companies
High riskOne listA bank's customer rating, Visa's high-brand-risk categories or MATCH's terminated merchants: three lists with three owners
LivenessProof a person is thereUsually resistance to masks and printouts; faked camera feeds are a separate test
Match rateHow often checks succeedA file was found, the details agreed, or a yes from SSA: three different numbers
Digital IDA government credentialA scan of a plastic card, a vendor profile, a bank login or a signed credential; only the last counts as a digital credential under the 2026 US FAQs
False positiveA mistakeIn screening: a name hit that's someone else. In monitoring: an alert that led to no report, though it may have been worth a look
Perpetual KYCA legal standardA vendor term for reviewing on events instead of on a calendar
PEPAny politicianUS: senior foreign political figures. Canada and the EU: domestic ones too

What surprised me

Placeholders in your voice, drafted from the earlier guides. Rewrite each with your own moment.

"KYB is a lookup." In the telco guide, the brand check for business texting was an exact match on EIN and legal name, and typos failed it. KYB looks like that with more fields, but a hijacked company passes the match perfectly. The match tells you the record exists, and the change history tells you whether to trust it.

"Ownership is public data." In the US there's no register to query for US companies, and since August 2026 there won't be one. The platform builds the ownership graph itself, dates it and keeps it current.

"The regulator is my counterparty." In spend management I learned fintechs rent a sponsor bank's charter. They also inherit its exam findings: one bank's consent order changed the onboarding rules for every fintech on it in a week.

"Approval is the finish line." I designed onboarding as the product. The money and the failures are in what comes after: alerts, reviews, refreshes, a team sized for last year's customers.

"A selfie is proof." A certified liveness check is certified against masks and printouts. A faked camera feed is a different attack, and the document itself is now the weakest signal in the stack.

Sources

Undated entries were read on October 3, 2026; "search result" means seen only as a search snippet.

US rules and regulators

Canada

UK and EU

Card networks and identifiers

Research and surveys

Company results and releases (the main players)

Law firms and press

Field Guides are learning notes, not legal or compliance advice. Rules and fees change; check the cited primary sources before you act on anything here.