Glossary
KYC
Know Your Customer — the regulated due-diligence required to open an account.
KYC (Know Your Customer) is the process a regulated provider follows to verify the identity of a customer and its beneficial owners before opening an account. It is a legal requirement under UK anti-money-laundering regulations and is conducted by the regulated provider, not by TimeFX.
In practice
How this works for a UK business
For a UK business, KYC typically requires evidence of the company's legal existence (Companies House details, certificate of incorporation), identification of the individuals who own or control it above a set ownership threshold (beneficial owners), and identity and address verification for the directors who will operate the account. The depth of checks required scales with the assessed risk of the customer and the nature of the business.
KYC is not a one-off event. Regulated providers are required to keep customer information current, which means periodic refreshes — sometimes triggered by a change in company structure, directors, ownership, or expected transaction patterns, and sometimes on a routine review cycle regardless of any change.
Businesses with layered ownership structures — a holding company, multiple trading entities, or ownership split across several individuals or trusts — should expect KYC to take proportionately longer, since the provider needs to trace beneficial ownership through each layer rather than at a single company level.
Worked example
Pitfalls
Common mistakes
- Submitting documents for the company but not for the underlying beneficial owners, which is the single most common cause of onboarding delay.
- Providing an outdated certificate of incorporation or proof of address that falls outside the provider's acceptable document age.
- Not disclosing a layered or multi-entity ownership structure upfront, leading to further rounds of document requests once the provider identifies the gap.
- Assuming KYC is a one-off check — providers may request refreshed information later if the business's structure, ownership or activity changes materially.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
See also
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