Stakeholder Roles in KYB Workflows

A KYB workflow collects two kinds of information: facts about the legal entity, and facts about the people and entities behind it. This page covers the second kind. Internally the platform calls every person or company attached to a case a beneficiary. Each beneficiary carries a role that tells the system what that stakeholder is, which workflow step collects them, and which checks and automations apply to them.

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The Five Roles

Roles are not a hierarchy. An ABO is on equal footing with a Shareholder or UBO: the same field and document requirements, the same AML and PEP screening, and the same identity verification options are available for each. The Ownership Structure step lets you either apply one shared configuration to Shareholders, UBOs, and ABOs, or configure each role on its own tab.

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How the Ownership Model Resolves

The Ownership Structure step is built around a corporate ownership model. It expects the ownership of the applicant company to resolve, layer by layer, until it reaches natural persons (or a government entity). Three settings control how far that goes: When Full ownership list is active, the form is validated on submission against two conditions:

1. The case contains at least one beneficiary of any kind.
2. Every company beneficiary of type Shareholder, UBO, or ABO has at least one individual beneficiary behind it.

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What ABO Is For

The corporate model works cleanly for companies whose ownership is a chain of percentage stakes. It does not describe every legal entity. Common examples: general partnerships, foundations and associations with no members, co-operatives, and companies so widely held that nobody crosses the ownership threshold. ABO exists for exactly these cases. It captures a person who is genuinely a beneficial owner in substance, without asserting a shareholding percentage that doesn’t exist. Because an individual ABO satisfies the beneficiary requirement on its own, it also resolves the structure without forcing you to invent an ownership layer.

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Mapping Real Structures Onto the Roles

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Worked Examples

A UK private limited company with two individual owners

Structure: Registered LTD. Two directors, who are also the only two shareholders, holding 60% and 40%.How to model it:

• Both individuals added twice — once as CEO in the Director Information step, once as Shareholder in the Ownership Structure step. The same person legitimately holds more than one role.
• Ownership percentages recorded as 60% and 40%.
• If your threshold is 25%, both must be declared.
• Because both shareholders are natural persons, the chain terminates and the structure validates.

Tip: if a person already completed identity verification — on this case or any other company — link their existing Scan Ref instead of sending a new verification request. See Company Details Tab.

An operating company owned through a holding company

Structure: Applicant is an operating company, 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn owned by two individuals at 50% each.How to model it:

• The holding company added as a company Shareholder of the applicant, at 100%.
• The two individuals added as individual UBOs behind the holding company, at 50% each.
• With Full ownership list enabled, the holding company must have at least one individual beneficiary attached to it. Adding only the holding company and stopping there triggers the incomplete ownership structure error.

If you only need visibility of the first layer, set Shareholder Check Level to First level ownership — the client then declares the holding company and nothing further is required.

A general partnership registered under one partner's name

Structure: A foreign law firm registered in Hong Kong. Legally a general partnership with several partners, but Hong Kong’s foreign law firm registration rules require a single named individual on the certificate, so the Business Registration Certificate names one partner and shows legal status as “Individual”. There is no shareholding and no percentage split between the partners.This is the case the platform’s corporate model handles least naturally, and the one most likely to be mis-routed. Two things frequently go wrong: it gets treated as a sole proprietorship because of the certificate, or it gets forced into shareholder fields and fails validation.How to model it:

1. Run it as a KYB case, not an individual KYC. The certificate showing “Individual” reflects a registration rule, not the entity’s actual legal form. A multi-partner firm is a business entity.
2. Do not use the Sole Proprietorship step. That step hides the director and shareholder sections and is built for a genuine single owner — it would misrepresent the firm and lose the other partners entirely.
3. Add every partner as an individual ABO, including the one named on the certificate. Partners are beneficial owners in substance without holding percentage stakes, which is precisely what ABO is for. Set Disclose Percentage to Off or Optional so no stake has to be asserted.
4. Record the real title using the positions field (Partner) so reviewers see the actual relationship.
5. Handle the certificate mismatch as documentation, not structure. Capture the named individual exactly as they appear on the Business Registration Certificate, and evidence the remaining partners with a supporting document — a partnership agreement or a signed declaration of the partners — via Document Management. The platform record then stays consistent with the certificate while still reflecting the true multi-partner reality.

Why this avoids the validation error: individual ABOs satisfy the beneficiary requirement and terminate the chain, so the system does not expect a further ownership layer behind them. Leaving the structure to resolve through a single named shareholder is what re-triggers the error.Every ABO still runs the full AML and identity checks you have configured, so you get complete coverage of all partners without pushing them into shareholder fields that don’t apply.

A foundation with no shareholders or members

Structure: A foundation or association. No shares, no members, controlled by a board.How to model it:

• Board members added as individual ABOs.
• Directors or officers added as CEO where the entity has them.
• Disclose Percentage set to Off or Optional.
• Governing documents — statutes, articles, board resolutions — uploaded as supporting documents to evidence who controls the entity.

The same pattern applies to co-operatives and other entities where control does not come from equity.

A company where no owner meets the ownership threshold

Structure: Ownership is dispersed and no single holder reaches your Shareholder Threshold.How to model it:

• Declare any shareholders that do cross the threshold as normal.
• Add the senior managing official as an individual ABO so the case still has a screened natural person attached, rather than resolving to nobody.
• Note the reason in the case — a questionnaire answer or an uploaded declaration — so the absence of a UBO is an evidenced decision rather than a gap.

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Keeping Automations Aligned With the Roles You Use

Roles are not just labels — automations target them. If you model a structure with an unusual role, check that your checks follow.

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Troubleshooting