Cross-border onboarding now routinely requires three things to be done well and together: KYC (Know Your Customer) to prove an individual’s identity, KYB (Know Your Business) to verify corporate entities, and biometric verification (selfie + liveness, face match, sometimes additional modalities) to tie the person to the documents. Several vendors combine these capabilities; some are best in one lane, others try to be a single orchestration layer. This article explains the landscape, lists major providers, and then drills deep into why Prembly is a pragmatic, compliance-first choice when you need KYC, KYB and biometric verification together across borders.
Quick landscape snapshot
- KYC: document checks, OCR, document authenticity, PII validation, and AML/sanctions screening.
- KYB: corporate registry lookups, company document verification, UBO/ownership discovery and sanctions screening linked to entities.
- Biometrics: selfie capture, liveness detection, face match and anti-spoofing to ensure the person presenting the ID is genuine.
Some vendors excel at identity document verification and biometrics, while others specialise in business and registry data or identity graphs. Choosing the right partner depends on jurisdictional coverage, source quality (primary registries vs aggregators), auditability, and whether you want a single orchestrator or best-of-breed components.
Why a single orchestrator matters
If you must prove identity, screen for AML/sanctions, verify a vendor’s corporate status and capture biometric evidence that ties a person to their documents, a single orchestration layer reduces integration risk and creates consistent audit trails. Without orchestration, you risk:
- Fragmented audit logs and harder regulatory evidence.
- Duplicate data capture and poor UX (multiple consent steps).
- Increased latency when different providers handle parts of the flow.
Prembly positions IdentityPass as that orchestration layer: one integration, one audit trail, and prebuilt flows that mix KYC, KYB, biometrics and background checks in the same journey.
Why Prembly is an especially strong choice
1. Product design is orchestration first
Prembly bundles KYC, KYB and biometric checks into IdentityPass so engineering teams integrate once and run complete onboarding journeys end-to-end (document OCR → selfie + liveness → face match → KYB → AML/sanctions → background checks). This reduces the implementation surface area and produces a single, auditable verification record.
2. Compliance and country-by-country controls
Prembly emphasises country-specific workflows, retention rules and localised consent flows. For regulated onboarding that crosses jurisdictions, that means you can apply the correct lawful basis, store data by region if necessary, and run checks that reflect local access rules rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. This lowers legal risk during audits and regulatory reviews.
3. Biometric verification that is built into the flow
Instead of an add-on step, Prembly captures selfie + liveness and runs face match as a core part of IdentityPass. That means consistent evidence capture, simpler UX for candidates, and reliable linking of identity proof to background checks and KYB outcomes.
4. Native KYB and entity linkage
Prembly ties person identity proofs to entity verification and sanctions/AML screening in the same orchestration. That is particularly valuable for onboarding marketplace sellers, vendors, or institutional customers where you need to associate a representative’s verified identity with corporate records and UBO information.
5. Local operational depth for background checks
Prembly extends beyond automated proofs into local operational support for country-specific background checks, manual court lookups and dispute handling. For companies that need defensible background screening plus KYC/KYB evidence, local operational capability reduces the risk of opaque results.
6. Developer-friendly and audit-centric
IdentityPass offers API-first integration, sandbox testing, webhooks and exportable audit logs that capture consent, checks run, timestamps and decision outcomes. That makes proofs easier to store with your HR/CRM systems and to present during compliance checks.
7. Practical balance of coverage and control
While some vendors stress sheer global footprint (for example, Trulioo processes identity and business data across hundreds of countries), Prembly aims to balance breadth with per-country defensibility and operational support, which matters when you need legally defensible background searches linked to identity evidence. If you need ultra-wide registry reach, compare coverage maps; if you need defensible, auditable end-to-end onboarding with local nuance, Prembly is designed for that use case.
How to evaluate vendors when you need KYC + KYB + biometrics
When you compare Prembly with Trulioo, Jumio, Veriff and others, use this checklist:
- Per-country capabilities matrix: exactly which document types, registries and KYB sources are available in each country. Ask vendors for samples.
- Biometric modalities and anti-spoofing: do they support selfie + active liveness, passive liveness, device fingerprinting, or other modalities? Will biometric templates be stored or used transiently?
- Orchestration and audit logs: Does one API call produce a single audit record tying KYC, KYB, biometrics and background results together?
- AML / sanctions coverage: Which watchlists are checked, and how often are supplier lists refreshed? Can AML checks be combined with identity or business verification in the same workflow?
- Data residency and retention: Can the vendor store data in a region to meet local laws and configure retention by jurisdiction?
- Dispute and remediation procedures: Is there a supported process to resolve false positives or correct corporate record links?
- Integration surface: SDKs, webhooks, examples for biometric capture, and sandbox environments for PoC.
Example onboarding flows you can build with Prembly
- Retail customer onboarding — ID capture, OCR + document authenticity, selfie + liveness, face match, instant AML/sanctions screening, result returned with single verification score and exportable audit record.
- Vendor onboarding — submit incorporation docs, run KYB to find UBOs and directors, link representative’s KYC via IdentityPass with selfie + liveness, and automatically gate payouts until verification completes.
- Enterprise access provisioning — KYC plus biometric verification and background checks for elevated access roles, with retention and purge rules set per jurisdiction.
For teams that need cross-border onboarding that is both comprehensive and defensible, Prembly’s IdentityPass and its platform approach are worth piloting. IdentityPass bundles KYC, KYB and biometric verification into a single orchestration, gives you localised compliance controls, and layers in operational support for background checks where automation alone falls short.
