UBO check API for KYC platforms
Know Your Customer (KYC) platforms increasingly need an Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) check inside legal-entity onboarding. Buyers often ask for an “API”, but the valuable payload is a determination result, not another company-data feed.
Transparify does not ship raw company-register extracts (as OpenCorporates- or Bundesanzeiger-style data APIs do). It returns a legally interpreted Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) determination after parallel assessment of ownership interest and control via other means under AMLR Articles 51–54. That is the buying argument for Know Your Customer (KYC) / Know Your Business (KYB) platforms that will not rebuild UBO logic themselves, often stronger than for a single law-firm user.
By Noah Böker, Regulatory Strategy, Transparify
Last updated: Content is reviewed on a ~90-day cycle while AMLR implementation evolves through 2027.
API buyers vs data buyers
A KYC platform that already has registry connectors still lacks parallel ownership-interest and control-via-other-means assessment under AMLR Articles 51–54. An UBO check API should expose structured conclusions, evidence references, and open questions, not only percentages scraped from a register.
What to expose in a determination-oriented API
Natural-person UBO candidates with grounds (ownership interest and/or control), layer graph summaries, special-case flags, and documentation suitable for audit. Keep human confirmation where legal judgement remains required. Transparify’s product stance rejects autonomous legal verdicts.
- Ground of determination per person
- Entity-layer structure snapshot
- Open questions / special-case markers
- Exportable audit trail fields
Primary market still matters
The same logic powers law firms, tax advisors, and notaries first. KYC platforms reuse that determination engine as a secondary GTM motion; they do not redefine Transparify as a generic KYC suite.
Related reading
Primary sources
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 (AMLR)Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, directly applicable from 10 July 2027.
- Directive (EU) 2024/1640 (AMLD6)Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive with national transposition obligations.
Determine the beneficial owners of one company. From €10.00 per determination, depending on your volume.
Transparify guides capture, threshold checks and documentation. You confirm the result. For several companies we prepare an individual offer on request.