KYC as a service
The check is the easy part. The record is the product.
Identity, company and sanctions checks run through a specialist provider. What we add is the workflow around them: who reviewed what, on what evidence, and when, in a form an examiner will accept.
Screening is delivered through a specialist provider. TerraTrade supplies the workflow and the record.
The problem
Nobody fails an audit on the screening. They fail on the file.
Buying a screening API is straightforward and most institutions already have one. The difficulty starts after the result comes back: a possible match on a common name, a company whose filings are two years stale, a beneficial owner nobody can trace past a second holding company.
Each of those needs a person to decide, and the decision needs to survive being questioned eighteen months later by someone who was not there. That is where files fall apart. The screening ran, the answer was reasonable, and there is no record of who accepted it or what they were looking at.
So the screening itself is not what we sell. We connect a specialist provider for the checks and put a reviewed, recorded, re-runnable process around them. The result is a file you can hand over rather than reconstruct.
- Specialist provider for the checks, not a home-built list
- Every clearance carries a reviewer, a timestamp and the evidence seen
- Re-screening on a schedule, not only at onboarding
How it works
Collect, check, decide, keep.
The same process whether you onboard five counterparties a month or five hundred.
- 01
Requirements are set by who they are
A sole trader in one jurisdiction and a group subsidiary in another need different documents. The requirement list is generated from the counterparty type and country, so nobody is chasing paperwork that was never needed.
- 02
The counterparty uploads once
Through a portal they can use without training, in their own language where we have it. Documents are read automatically, so fields are pre-filled rather than retyped.
- 03
Checks run through the provider
Identity verification, company verification, sanctions and politically-exposed-person screening, and beneficial ownership where the provider can reach it. Results land against the counterparty record, not in an inbox.
- 04
A person decides, and it is recorded
Possible matches, stale filings and untraceable ownership go to a reviewer with the evidence attached. The decision is stamped onto the record with a reason. Then it re-screens on a schedule without anyone remembering to.
What the service covers
- KYC + KYB
- Individuals who sign, and the entities they sign for
- Ongoing not once
- Re-screening on a schedule after onboarding
- Field level
- Record of who decided what, when, and on what evidence
- 0 facilities
- Finance required to use it
Identity, sanctions, PEP and beneficial-ownership checks are performed by a specialist third-party provider. Coverage and available checks vary by jurisdiction. TerraTrade provides the workflow, the review process and the record.
What is covered
The parts that make it a file rather than a result.
The checks come from the provider. These are the things around them that decide whether the file holds up.
- 01 Requirement sets by jurisdiction
- What a counterparty of this type in this country actually has to provide, so the request is right first time.
- 02 Document reading
- Fields extracted from what they upload and cross-checked, so a mismatch between a certificate and a form is caught before a reviewer sees it.
- 03 Review with the evidence attached
- A reviewer sees the check result and the document it relates to together, and records a reason rather than a tick.
- 04 Scheduled re-screening
- Sanctions and PEP status change. Re-checks run on a cadence you set, and a new hit reopens the case rather than sitting in a report.
- 05 Freshness clocks
- Company filings and credit information expire. The record knows when a document is too old to rely on and says so before someone relies on it.
- 06 Exports an examiner can read
- The whole file, including decisions and the evidence behind them, in a form that needs no walkthrough.
Questions
The questions that matter here.
Who actually performs the screening?
A specialist third-party provider. We will name them, tell you which checks they cover in your jurisdictions, and share their documentation during scoping. We are not going to imply we maintain sanctions lists ourselves.
Can we bring our own provider?
Yes, and many institutions want to, because they already have a contract and a rate. Any integration can run on your own credentials per tenant, so you keep the relationship and the pricing.
Who is responsible for the compliance decision?
You are, or your regulated entity is. We provide the workflow, the evidence and the record. Where a decision must sit with a licensed person, the process routes it there and captures it. We do not take on your regulatory obligations.
Does this cover beneficial ownership?
As far as the provider and the relevant registries reach, which varies a great deal by jurisdiction and is often the weakest link. Where the chain cannot be traced, the record says so explicitly rather than showing a clean result.
Can we use it for counterparties unrelated to trade?
Yes. Nothing in the workflow assumes a trade transaction. The requirement sets are configurable by counterparty type.
What happens when someone we onboarded appears on a list later?
The scheduled re-screen picks it up, the case reopens as a task with an owner and a deadline, and the record shows the gap between clearance and the new hit. That gap is the thing examiners ask about, so it is recorded rather than smoothed over.
Next
Bring us the case that went wrong.
A counterparty that took six weeks, or a file that did not survive review. We will show you what the process would have captured and where it would still have needed a person.
- Walked through on your own case, not a demo
- Straight answers on what the provider does and does not cover
- No facility, and no obligation to discuss one