A Guide to KYB APIs for Developers
KYB APIs are here to stay.
Regulatory fines for AML deficiencies have surged, and global regulators are imposing increasingly tougher demands on financial institutions and law firms. However, the burden of manual verification processes is crippling operational efficiency.
The regulatory environment demands more comprehensive verification across multiple jurisdictions, but customers expect seamless, real-time experiences. This creates a fundamental tension: how do you strengthen due diligence capabilities while reducing friction and operational costs?
The answer lies in API-first KYB solutions that can automate and standardise verification processes without compromising on data quality or regulatory compliance.
But with numerous providers offering different approaches – from live registry access to cached databases – how do you choose the right one?
This guide will walk you through the current regulatory trends driving KYB requirements, the key features that separate effective APIs from basic data feeds, and the practical considerations for integrating these solutions into your product architecture.
What is a KYB API?
A KYB API is a software interface that allows businesses to integrate Know Your Business (KYB) data directly into their systems.
It acts as a bridge between the business’s platform and external verification services or official data sources, such as company registers, credit bureaus, government ID databases, and watchlists, allowing automatic customer verification in real time.
Regulatory Pressure
Banks and law firms are caught between two opposing points. Financial regulators are imposing big fines for “AML deficiencies”, while governments are rolling back on beneficial ownership requirements.
The EU: Despite the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, less than one-third of EU countries have publicly available UBO registers.
The US: Donald Trump removed the requirement for domestic entities to file their beneficial owners.
The Financial Action Task Force has, in response, issued guidelines to regulated institutions: use a “multi-pronged” approach to KYB due diligence, comprising multiple primary sources.
As you can see, these more stringent demands placed on businesses require better capabilities.
Cost of Manual Processes
According to Lexis Nexis’s 2024 True Cost of Compliance Report, the spend on client screening by financial institutions and fintechs has increased by a third since 2021. This means British financial institutions are spending £38.4 billion a year on compliance – that’s the GDP of Estonia.
The Effect: Many banks adopt a risk-based approach to due diligence due to the associated overheads.
Netherlands: Dutch banks identify “pseudo-beneficial owners” in lieu of real UBOs if the risk is deemed low, at the discretion of financial crime teams.
Luxembourg: The Commission de surveillance du secteur financier (CCSF) advises low- to medium-risk clients’ UBO verified by “information provided by the customer as to the UBO’s identity.”
Britain: The Institute for Chartered Accountants of England and Wales says, “For a normal risk client, you don’t need to view the original document and electronically verify.”
This can be dangerous because it's at the discretion of superficial, surface-level reads of a situation.
Manual to API-first
There’s been an increase in API-first KYB data providers in recent years, prompted by tougher regulatory demands imposed on businesses.
API-first companies can more easily integrate other solutions into their own, increasing the breadth of their product offering, enabling more easily automated workflows customisable to risk appetite.
Case Study: Idenfy: Idenfy is an all-in-one KYB platform, with integrations to multiple vendors. This enables it to provide tailor-made AML and due diligence services to customers.
Orchestration: Build vs Buy
This API-first mentality, prompted by increased regulatory enforcement, has enabled another trend in the space: building in-house KYB solutions via integrations with multiple APIs comprising best-of-breed KYB data solutions, such as Kyckr. This removes single-vendor risk and improves coverage.
Orchestration vendors (e.g., Indenfy, Sumsub) provide customisable, tailor-made KYB solutions to customers based on their risk appetite and onboarding needs, pulling together numerous partners.
Regulated institutions build in-house solutions based on a variety of risk appetites and onboarding needs, drawing from different data sources and automated workflows for a personalised AML system.
What to Look for in a KYB API
A product leader's challenge is to find a provider that can handle the sheer volume and diversity of this data while ensuring its accuracy and reliability.
Without a solid data foundation, the solution will fail to detect fraud. As Gartner found, bad data costs the average organisation $15 million. Good KYB data is defined by its breadth, accuracy, and freshness.
1. Coverage
A good KYB API should provide access to multiple official sources of information from a single access point. Financial crime is global, with criminals often operating complex corporate structures spanning multiple jurisdictions.
This can come in various forms:
Global business registers.
Sanctions watchlists.
Commercial records.
Example: Kyckr provides a single access point via an API to 300+ official company registers, in real time.
Important: The FATF’s “multi-pronged” approach to UBO verification highlights the need for intelligent data aggregation. As a result, the most valuable KYB API providers are those that can expertly navigate a complex, multi-source environment and deliver a unified, verifiable result.
2. Structured and Normalised Data
The best KYB APIs process messy and inconsistent information from countless registry sources by normalising and structuring data.
Structured Data: The best KYB APIs, such as the Kyckr API, transpose information on company filings into machine-readable data. This is particularly important because most official registry APIs only provide shareholder information in PDF, which requires manual parsing, significantly slowing down onboarding time.
Normalised Data: The best KYB APIs present all registry data in one data format. For example, Kyckr normalises official company data from 300+ registers into a single JSON data model.
Remember: Poorly normalised data leads to update and delete anomalies and can result in a high rate of false positives, which directly increases operational costs and burdens the compliance team.
3. Fresh Data
The FATF recommends the use of “timely information”, which means the most up-to-date company data available.
After all, corporate structures change over time – sometimes in a matter of days – and sometimes for illicit purposes. Out-of-date information is dangerous in business verification.
Remember: Check with the KYB API provider how timely its information is – whether it’s updated daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.
Why Not Go Directly to the Company Registers?
Many official company registers offer API integrations, such as Companies House, which has a RESTful API. However, countries offer differing levels of access, and many of these APIs don’t provide shareholder information.
Restricted Access: Italy restricts API access to domestic entities.
Limited Data: The UK, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands don’t offer shareholder data via APIs.
Solution: Kyckr solves that problem by giving API access to 300+ company registers, including out-of-reach jurisdictions such as Italy. The Kyckr API also extracts shareholder data from confirmation statements and other company filings, normalises and standardises it into a machine-readable format.
Different KYB APIs Available
Live Registry Access
Live KYB APIs, such as the Kyckr API, offer live access to 300+ official company registers.
Pros: This provides customers with the most up-to-date information on global companies available.
Cons: Live access is at the mercy of official company registries. For example, some are synchronous while others are asynchronous.
Remember: Companies offering live API access are usually transparent about technical faults at registries. For example, both Kyckr and Middesk offer a status page.
Cached Database Access
These KYB APIs offer API access to a database of company records and information. A good example of this is OpenCorporates.
Pros: Instant access to a database of company information.
Cons: The database must be updated manually, which means developers are at the mercy of the database.
Example: OpenCorporates provides live access to some registers, but hasn’t updated other registers since 2018.
Bulk Data + API
For certain jurisdictions, some companies rely on downloading bulk datasets from official registers, such as Companies House, then using an API to sift through the information.
Pros: Instant access to company records and no reliance on third-party vendors.
Cons: Enhanced due diligence on high-risk entities, such as complex corporate structures spread over multiple jurisdictions, will still require access to other registers.
How the Kyckr API Works
The Kyckr API provides live access to 300+ official company registries via a single integration.
Real Time: Information retrieval is in real time at the point of request
Primary Source: Data is sourced from official, primary government sources
Documents: Over a thousand different types of official registry documents (PDF)
Normalised: Machine-readable data (available as JSON/XML in a normalised structure).
Standardised: Disparate filing systems from 120 countries standardised under one system.
The Kyckr API removes the need to build and maintain multiple API connections with hard-to-reach government departments, saving thousands of hours otherwise spent on contracting conversations, authentication procedures, and API/RPA maintenance.
Book a demo to find out more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why not just go directly to the registries?
Some official company registers, such as Companies House, offer API access but don’t deliver shareholder data in a structured format. Other registries, such as Italy, the Netherlands, and China, only provide API access to local companies. Setting up multiple API integrations with global registers takes years to set up. With Kyckr, customers access 300+ official company registers via one integration, instantly.
