KYB (Know Your Business)
Know Your Business is the due-diligence process banks, EMIs, and acquirers run to verify a corporate applicant: beneficial ownership, incorporation documents, source of funds, and the nature of the business itself. It is the corporate counterpart to KYC (Know Your Customer), which verifies individuals.
An incomplete KYB file is the reason roughly half of first-time high-risk applications stall past 30 days, not because the business is unbankable but because ownership structure or source-of-funds documentation was missing at submission. A complete file cuts that review window to 1-2 weeks in most cases.
Underwriting is the risk-assessment process a bank, EMI, or acquirer runs on an applicant before approval: verifying ownership, source of funds, transaction history, and sector-specific risk factors against the institution’s published or internal risk appetite.
A segregated account holds client funds separately from a firm’s own operating capital, so client money is never at risk if the firm becomes insolvent.
An Electronic Money Institution is a regulated entity, licensed separately from a bank, authorized to issue e-money and provide payment accounts and services.
A Virtual Asset Service Provider is a business registered or licensed to exchange, custody, or transfer crypto assets on behalf of customers, a classification introduced by the FATF Travel Rule and adopted into national registration regimes across most jurisdictions that touch fiat rails.