KYC/KYB Verification and Risk Screening

Verify businesses and owners in one click using Green Check's integrated KYC/KYB tools - powered by Middesk and Socure

Overview

Green Check's KYC/KYB feature adds advanced verification and risk screening to the existing account onboarding  and relationship management functionality. With these tools, you can:

• Verify business legitimacy with EIN verification, confirming status, ownership, and addresses

• Screen businesses and owners against OFAC, PEP, and other critical watchlists

• Conduct comprehensive KYC on business owners including identity verification and fraud detection

• Access criminal history and adverse media screening for a complete risk assessment

What's Included

The KYC/KYB feature works on an a-la-carte basis, meaning you can order individual verifications for each business as needed. The verification steps below can be conducted independently for each of your cannabis accounts. 

Business Verification (and watchlist screening)

This step allows you to verify the status, associated individuals, address(es), etc. of a business’s EIN according to Secretary of State (SoS) data. As part of business verification, we also check businesses and  business owners against OFAC, PEP, and other watchlists. 

The Business Verification step includes ongoing monitoring of SoS data and governmental watchlists. You will receive a notification if any of the SoS data changes, or if the business or associated owners appear on any watchlists after the initial verification is completed.

KYC on Business Owners

This step verifies each business owner's SSN/TIN, DOB, address, phone, email, etc. and checks for risk signals across an array of data points/sources. KYC functionality is powered by Socure. 

Criminal History

This step allows you to query for a business and any associated business owners' criminal history, including case details, charges, sentences, arrests, dispositions, and judgments. 

Adverse Media

This step screens for adverse media associated with businesses and business owners across internet news and media sources, returning an aggregated risk score, categories (e.g. fraud, financial crime), and supporting articles.

 

How it Works

You can order KYC/KYB verification on any accounts with a status of Active, Awaiting Review, or Review in Progress. 

1. Active Accounts: You can order KYC/KYB verification for an ‘Active’ account by navigating to Accounts>[YOUR CRB]>General tab and scrolling down the page.
2. Awaiting Review / Review in Progress Accounts: You can order KYC/KYB verification for accounts that are in the review process. Navigate to the bottom of the Account Approval page within the Account to find the Business Verification section.  This is not required for you to approve an account; it is optional.

Verifying a Business

1. Whether you’re performing the business verification check via ‘Active’ Accounts or the ‘Account Approval page’, you’ll first need to navigate the ‘Business Verification’ section.
2. Here you will see a few new sections (Business Verification, Adverse Media, Criminal History, and KYC). You’ll need to run Business Verification first before you can move on to any of the other steps. 
3. Click the ‘Verify Business’ button. There will be a roughly 5-second delay, then you’ll see some high-level results of the business verification check, including:
   1. Details about Secretary of State filings in all relevant states
   2. TIN/EIN status with the IRS
   3. If any of the Account Owners or Beneficial Owners were found on any government watchlists
4. Click the Download PDF button to view more details about the business verification.

If business details change in Green Check (e.g. updated EIN), you’ll need to run a fresh business verification by coming back to this section and clicking the “Refresh Business Details” button.

KYC on Business Owners

*The Business Verification step must be completed before performing an Adverse Media check

1. Click the ‘Order KYC’ button
2. You’ll receive a message reminding you to refer to your Green Check agreement so that you’re aware of the billing impact of this check. If you’d like to proceed, check the checkboxes for the CRB Users you’d like to run a KYC check for and click ‘Order KYC’.
   1. Please note that you’ll need to have SSNs for any CRB users you’d like to run KYC checks for. If there are any account users for whom you don’t have an SSN, you can navigate to Account Users and enter that user’s SSN. Alternatively, you can have the CRB user enter their SSN by modifying their user profile. 
3. After a roughly 5-second delay, you’ll see the results of the KYC checks for account owners and any beneficial owners. You can click the row to see details in the drawer about the KYC check that was run. 
4. Similar to the Business Verification step, this can be re-ordered at any time, and could be incorporated into your yearly reporting checks. 
5. Click the Download PDF button to see these details incorporated into your PDF.

Checking for Adverse Media

*The Business Verification step must be completed before performing an Adverse Media check

1. Click the ‘Order Adverse Media’ button
2. You’ll receive a message reminding you to refer to your Green Check agreement so that you’re aware of the billing impact of this check. If you’d like to proceed, click ‘Order Adverse Media’.
3. After a roughly 5-second delay, you’ll see the results of adverse media checks for both the business, account owners, and any beneficial owners. You can click the arrow to review details about the adverse media checks, including article titles and links to relevant articles.
4. Similar to the Business Verification step, this can be re-ordered at any time, and could be incorporated into your yearly reporting checks. 
5. Click the Download PDF button to see these details incorporated into your PDF.

Checking for Criminal History

*The Business Verification step must be completed before performing a Criminal History check

1. Click the ‘Order Criminal History’ button
2. You’ll receive a message reminding you to refer to your Green Check agreement so that you’re aware of the billing impact of this check. If you’d like to proceed, check the checkboxes for the CRB Users you’d like to run a criminal history check for and click ‘Order Criminal History’.
3. If there are criminal history events of note, you’ll see them listed in the table. Otherwise, you’ll see that no records were found. 
4. After a roughly 5-second delay, you’ll see the results of the Criminal History checks for account owners and any beneficial owners you selected.
5. Click the Download PDF button to see these details incorporated into your PDF.

Data Sources

Green Check integrates with Middesk + Socure, the leading providers of KYC/KYB and Risk Screening tools to improve data-driven decision making for serving high risk customers. This integrated solution offers the following capabilities to service providers using Green Check’s SaaS platform.

EIN Verification 

Verifying status, ownership, address, etc. of a business’s EIN and monitoring for ongoing changes. This data is sourced directly from the applicable Secretary of State’s databases.  

Watchlist Screening

Checking businesses and owners against OFAC, PEP, and other watchlists. Watchlists include:

• U.S. Department of Commerce
  • Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)
    • Denied Persons List (DPL)
    • Entity List (EL)
    • Military End User (MEU)
    • Unverified List (UVL)
• U.S. Department of State
  • Bureau of International Security and Non-Proliferation (ISN)
    • Nonproliferation Sanctions (ISN)
  • Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC)
    • AECA/ITAR Debarred (DTC)
• U.S. Department of Treasury
  • Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
    • Capta List (CAP)
    • Foreign Sanctions Evaders (FSE)
    • Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List (NS-CMIC)
    • Non-SDN Iranian Sanctions (NS-ISA)
    • Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions (NS-MBS)
    • Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)
    • Specially Designated Nationals (SDN)
    • Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) 

KYC on Business Owners

For individuals tied to a business (beneficial owners, officers, etc.), we run identity checks across U.S. databases (credit, utility, telecom, etc.) to validate attributes like SSN, DOB, address, phone, and email. This also includes identity fraud, synthetic fraud, and risk scoring — giving a full picture of whether the person is who they claim to be and if there are signals of fraud. 

Criminal History

Query for an individual’s criminal history, including case details, charges, sentences, arrests, dispositions, and judgments. Sources include a combination of authoritative government and court records. These include state and county-level court filings, as well as federal court systems, to identify relevant criminal history tied to individuals.

Adverse Media

Screen for adverse media related to businesses and individuals across internet news and media sources, returning an aggregated risk score, categories (e.g. fraud, financial crime), and supporting articles. Sources include ~400,000 online sources, including global news outlets, industry publications, and social platforms such as LinkedIn and Google Places.