> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://documentation.idenfy.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Stakeholder Roles in KYB Workflows > Reference for the five stakeholder roles in an iDenfy KYB workflow — CEO, Representative, Shareholder, UBO, and ABO — and how to map partnerships, foundations, and holding chains onto them. 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. CEO, Representative, Shareholder, UBO, and ABO. Every stakeholder on a case is one of these. All five roles support the same AML screening and identity verification. Role does not mean tier. Ownership resolves down a shareholding chain to natural persons. Structures that don't fit are modelled with ABO. *** ## The Five Roles | Role | Who it covers | Collected in | | -------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Director / CEO** | Individuals who manage and legally represent the entity. Companies can also act as directors if **Directorship addition** is enabled. | [Director Information step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-director-information) | | **Representative** | A person authorised to act on behalf of the company — often the person filling in the form, a company secretary, or an appointed adviser. Carries no ownership meaning. | [Representative Information step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-representative-information) | | **Shareholder** | An individual **or a legal entity** holding equity in the company. A company shareholder opens a new layer in the ownership chain. | [Ownership Structure step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure) | | **UBO** (Ultimate Beneficial Owner) | The natural person who ultimately owns or controls the entity, at the end of the ownership chain. | [Ownership Structure step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure) | | **ABO** (Alternative Beneficial Owner) | A beneficial owner who must be captured and screened but does **not** hold a conventional percentage stake — partners, founders, board members of a memberless entity, senior managing officials. | [Ownership Structure step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure) | **Shareholder**, **UBO**, and **ABO** each have to be switched on individually under **Shareholder Types** in the Ownership Structure step. A role that isn't enabled cannot be added by the client, and rules that target it will never fire. 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](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure) lets you either apply one shared configuration to Shareholders, UBOs, and ABOs, or configure each role on its own tab. *** ## 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: | Setting | Effect | | --------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Shareholder Check Level — First level ownership** | The client lists only direct shareholders. The chain is not traced further. | | **Shareholder Check Level — Full ownership list** | The client must trace ownership all the way back to natural persons or government entities. | | **Shareholder Threshold** | Shareholders below this percentage don't have to be declared (e.g. `25%` means only holders of 25% or more). | | **Disclose Percentage** | Whether the exact stake is **Off**, **Optional**, or **Required**. Percentage is a nullable value — a stakeholder can exist with no percentage attached. | 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. Failing either condition is what produces an **incomplete ownership structure** error on submit. The key detail: the requirement only applies to **company** stakeholders. An **individual** Shareholder, UBO, or ABO terminates the chain — the system does not expect a further layer of ownership behind a natural person. Adding individuals in the correct role is therefore the fix for most of these errors, not adding more layers. *** ## 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. The API also exposes a free-text `positions` list on each beneficiary (up to three entries, 50 characters each). Use it to record the real-world title — `Partner`, `Trustee`, `Founder`, `Managing Member` — next to the platform role, so a reviewer can see what the person actually is. See [Collect Information](/kyb/collect-information#beneficiaries). *** ## Mapping Real Structures Onto the Roles | Real-world structure | How to model it | | ---------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Private limited company, individuals own the shares | Directors as **CEO**, owners as **Shareholder** (and **UBO** where they meet the definition) | | Company owned through a holding company | Holding company as a **company Shareholder**, its owners as **individual UBOs** behind it | | General partnership / LLP with no percentage split | Every partner as an **individual ABO** | | Sole trader / sole proprietorship | Not the Ownership Structure step — use the [Sole Proprietorship step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-sole-proprietorship) | | Foundation, association, or memberless entity | Founders, trustees, or board members as **individual ABOs** | | State- or government-owned entity | Chain terminates at the government entity; no natural person is required beyond it | | Widely held company where nobody meets the threshold | Senior managing official as an **individual ABO** | ### Worked Examples **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](/guides/dashboard/kyb/company-details-tab). **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. **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](/guides/dashboard/general/document-management-individuals-companies). 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. **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. **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](/guides/dashboard/features/step-questionnaire) answer or an uploaded declaration — so the absence of a UBO is an evidenced decision rather than a gap. *** ## 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. | Automation | Behaviour to watch | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [AI reviewer rules](/guides/dashboard/kyb/ai-reviwer-check-reference) | A rule targeting a beneficiary type that isn't present on the case is **silently skipped** — no result appears in the UI. A rule written against Shareholder will not run on a case built from ABOs. | | [KYC token automation](/guides/dashboard/risk/custom-rules) | Can be configured for **UBO, ABO, Shareholder, and Representative**. Enable it for the roles you actually use, or verification links won't be sent. | | [Shareholders check automation](/guides/dashboard/risk/custom-rules) | Extracts shareholders from credit bureau reports. Partnerships and foundations generally have no such registry data, so stakeholders must be added manually. | | Identity verification | Configured per step and per role. Enabling it for Shareholders does not enable it for ABOs unless you use the unified configuration option. | *** ## Troubleshooting | Symptom | Cause | Fix | | -------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Incomplete ownership structure on submit | The case has no beneficiaries at all, or a company Shareholder / UBO / ABO with no individual behind it | Add the missing individuals in the appropriate role, or switch to **First level ownership** if you don't need the full chain | | Client cannot add a partner or founder | **ABO** is not enabled under **Shareholder Types** | Enable ABO in the [Ownership Structure step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure) | | Client is blocked because they cannot state a percentage | **Disclose Percentage** is set to **Required** | Set it to **Optional** or **Off** for workflows that handle non-equity structures | | A beneficiary check never appears in the results | No beneficiary of the targeted type exists on the case | Align the rule's target role with the roles the workflow actually collects | | Sole proprietor fields shown for a multi-partner firm | The Sole Proprietorship step is active, which hides the director and shareholder sections | Route the case to a workflow without that step, and model the partners as ABOs | **Known limitation.** There is no dedicated entity type for general partnerships, memberless foundations, or other structures that do not resolve into a percentage-shareholding chain. ABO is the current recommended way to represent them rather than a purpose-built solution. It gives full check coverage of every stakeholder and satisfies structure validation, but the case will not display a native partnership structure. This gap is logged internally. If you routinely onboard these entity types, consider a dedicated workflow for them and route to it with [Dynamic Workflows](/guides/dashboard/kyb/dynamic-workflows). ## Related topics - [Ownership Structure Workflow Step](/guides/dashboard/kyb/step-ownership-structure.md) - [Workflow Setup Overview](/guides/dashboard/setup/setup-workflow-overview.md) - [Getting Started with KYB](/guides/dashboard/kyb/getting-started.md) - [Dynamic Workflows](/guides/dashboard/kyb/dynamic-workflows.md) - [KYB Webhooks](/kyb/webhooks.md)