UBO Screening
UBO Screening that recurses until it finds the real owners
Ownership rarely ends at the first layer. Zyphe's agents treat every corporate shareholder as a new case: they pull the registry extract, read the shareholder table, and recurse, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, until the chain ends in natural persons. Effective ownership is multiplied through every layer, owners above your threshold are flagged as UBOs, and every hop carries its registry evidence into the case file your team approves.
Trusted by those who trust no one.
“The KYB feature stands out with a good UI and a lot of information like UBO and financials. I also appreciate that their compliance features offset efforts from my compliance team, which is very helpful.”
4.9/5 from 9 customer reviews
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“Zyphe has completely transformed how we handle KYC data, allowing us to seamlessly share identity information with other financial participants while ensuring that users retain full control over their personal data.”
Milo Guastamacchia · 5/5 Yooro CEO and Co-Founder -
“Zyphe has made a big difference in how we approach attendee verification and data security. With decentralized storage for greater privacy, AI-driven identity verification for global check-ins, and audit-ready KYC, we have managed to reduce how much PII we need to handle while having a better user experience. It is easier for us to comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.”
Kelvin Rolf · 5/5 Twotixx CEO and Co-Founder -
“As a non-custodial wallet, we require every user to complete KYC while also integrating with multiple regulated partners, each with their own compliance requirements. Zyphe gave us a centralized way to collect and manage user identity data while securely sharing it with our partners, significantly reducing friction throughout the onboarding journey.”
Gonzalo del Cerro · 5/5 Vesseo Head of Product -
“I like the ease of use and the security that Zyphe provides. It has a clean user interface on both the admin and user side. The integrated one-click KYC feature makes the whole experience super fast. The initial setup was easy because they set up everything for me.”
Fausto D. · 5/5 Owner, mid-market business -
“The availability of the staff and the ease of integration.”
Alessandro R. · 5/5 CEO, small business -
“I use Zyphe's KYC service and agentic compliance service. My users can be verified in a seamless way, and we use their AI agents to support our compliance team. Zyphe was integrated in no time, just the time to open an account and install their SDK.”
Stefano D. · 5/5 CTO, small business -
“I think Zyphe is fantastic because of its user interface, which is really good when onboarding documentation. I also appreciate how it enables us to share KYC checks externally. And honestly, the support team is amazing.”
Ignacio P. · 4.5/5 Small business -
“I like that Zyphe provides an end-to-end solution for KYC, KYB, and AML case files, integrating seamlessly into our existing stack with documented audit trails for each decision. Additionally, I appreciate the excellent customer support that prompted us to switch from Onfido. The initial setup of Zyphe was super easy, which was a big plus.”
Gunja G. · 4.5/5 Senior Loan Processor, mid-market business
Built for ownership structures that fight back
Corporate registries agents pull extracts and shareholder tables from
Countries whose identity documents Zyphe verifies, for the natural persons at the end of each chain
Default beneficial-ownership threshold, aligned to AMLR, configurable per programme
Recursive resolution, not a one-level lookup
Most tools stop at the first shareholder table. Zyphe's agents keep going until there is a natural person at the end of every branch, and show their work at every hop.
Recursive entity resolution
Every corporate shareholder becomes a new lookup: registry extract, officers, shareholder table, next layer. Cross-border chains are followed into each jurisdiction's own registry.
Effective ownership math
Percentages are multiplied through the chain, so an owner three layers up is measured by what they actually control. Thresholds are applied to effective ownership, not paper shares.
Structures that resist analysis
Circular holdings, nominee patterns, and branches that dead-end without a natural person are flagged for your reviewers instead of silently dropped.
Screened, evidenced, approved
Every identified UBO is screened against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media lists. The full trace, extract by extract, lands in a decision-ready case file for your team's sign-off.
How recursive UBO screening works
A real resolution follows the ownership tree wherever it goes. Here is the shape of a typical case: two layers of holding companies, three registries, two UBOs.
The agent pulls the official registry extract for the company under review: legal existence, officers, and the shareholder table that seeds the tree.
Each entity in the shareholder table becomes a new lookup in its home registry. The agent multiplies ownership percentages through the chain, detects loops, and keeps going until every branch ends in a natural person or a documented dead end.
Natural persons above the threshold are flagged as UBOs and screened against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media lists. The complete evidence trail goes to your reviewers as a decision-ready case file; adverse decisions always carry your team's named approval.
Better compliance in 190+ Countries
Banking Secrecy Act
Enforces strict record-keeping and reporting requirements for financial institutions to prevent money laundering and financial crimes in the United States.
Anti-money Laundering Act
Establishes measures and responsibilities for financial intermediaries in Switzerland to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Proceeds of Crime
Canadian regulation requiring financial institutions to detect, prevent, and report suspicious transactions related to criminal proceeds.
Terrorist Financing Act
Legislation enforcing measures in Canada to detect, prevent, and report financial activities linked to terrorist financing.
Anti-money Laundering
Australian regulation mandating financial entities implement robust compliance measures to detect, prevent, and report money laundering activities.
Counter-Terrorism Financing Act
Australian law ensuring financial institutions identify, monitor, and report activities related to financing of terrorism to maintain national and global security.
Integrate in as little as 15 minutes
curl -X POST https://verify.zyphe.com/v1/login_sessions \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"auth_type": "email"}'
Frequent Questions
UBO screening identifies the Ultimate Beneficial Owners of a business, the natural persons who ultimately own or control it through any number of intermediate entities, and screens them against sanctions, PEP, and adverse media lists. It is required in customer due diligence for corporate customers under AML rules in the EU, UK, and US.
There is no fixed layer limit. Agents recurse until every branch of the ownership tree ends in a natural person, a listed company, a state entity, or a documented dead end. Each layer is resolved from the official registry of the entity's home jurisdiction, and loops between entities are detected rather than followed forever.
By multiplying percentages through the chain. If a person owns 80% of a holding company that owns 55% of another holding that owns 64% of the target, their effective ownership is 28.2%, above a 25% threshold even though no single link says so. Zyphe applies thresholds to effective ownership and logs the calculation in the case file.
The EU's AMLR sets beneficial ownership at 25% or more, direct or indirect, and applies from 10 July 2027 as a single rulebook; many institutions apply stricter internal thresholds for higher-risk customers. Zyphe defaults to 25% and lets your programme configure lower thresholds per risk tier.
KYB is the full corporate due-diligence workflow: legal existence, registry records, screening, and periodic reviews. UBO screening is the hardest step inside it, resolving who actually owns the company. They run on the same agents and case files; this page exists because ownership resolution is where most tools stop early. Explore KYB Software
KYB Readiness Score
Benchmark your Know Your Business verification, UBO discovery and entity due-diligence workflow against industry best practice.Explore more Zyphe products
Know Your Business
Verify companies, find the beneficial owners
The authoritative company record is purchased live from 240+ official registries, then ownership is followed through parents and trusts to natural persons, with every owner gated by a linked KYC check.
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