FATF's July 2026 targeted update found that 83% of surveyed jurisdictions have now passed legislation implementing the crypto Travel Rule, up from 73% the year before. Every business that is about to onboard with a crypto payment provider will need to provide even more identity information with greater consistency across borders.
A checklist can be helpful, but it's even more helpful to understand the order things happen in and how the documents will move.
KYC and KYB are two separate gates, not one
KYC (Know Your Customer) verifies an individual while KYB (Know Your Business) verifies the company that individual represents, its ownership structure, and what it actually does.
On most platforms, including ours, these run in sequence rather than in parallel. The person handling onboarding for their company signs up first as an individual and clears their own KYC. Only once that's done does corporate onboarding open up: company details, nature of business, countries of operation, supporting documents.
You'll assume you can submit company paperwork on day one, but in practice, the individual has to clear first.
What KYC in crypto is actually trying to establish
Crypto gets treated as harder to trace than it actually is. Every transaction sits on a public, time-stamped ledger, permanent and traceable back to a wallet address, which is a different starting point from cash. Chainalysis data reported in Moody's Analytics research put illicit activity at just 0.15% of crypto transaction volume in 2021, down sharply from 3.37% two years earlier. The overwhelming majority of activity isn't the problem.
The risk that remains is concentrated in a few specific techniques: mixers that pool and obscure the origin of funds, decentralized exchanges that let value move wallet-to-wallet with no central administrator to flag anything unusual, privacy coins that hide transaction history by design, and NFTs occasionally used to move value while looking like something else. None of these make crypto uniquely risky. They're exactly why a provider's KYC process asks the questions it does.
In practice, that means a provider is really trying to answer four things about who it's onboarding:
- Who are we dealing with, and what's their prior risk history?
- Does this business already run its own KYC discipline internally?
- Is the source of the funds or crypto being received actually known?
- Does the transaction pattern look normal, or does something about it stand out?
All of onboarding gets viewed through this lens.
What a business actually needs ready
Keeping this foundational, not a full KYB deep-dive, here's what tends to come up early:
- UBO (ultimate beneficial owner) identification for whoever's signing up
- A clear description of the business and its nature of activity
- The countries the business operates in or serves
- Supporting corporate documents (incorporation, ownership structure, licences where relevant)
None of this is unusual by fintech standards, but what's different in crypto is how closely the nature-of-business and countries-of-operation answers get scrutinised. Effectively, the answers shape the risk rating for everything downstream.
Why relationship-based onboarding still dominates this market
A lot of crypto payment providers, including newer entrants, still onboard the way relationship-driven finance businesses always have: a conversation with the people running the company, documents sent over by email, and someone on the provider's side uploading them into the system rather than the client self-serving through a portal.
For a lot of this market, it's still the default path, and it works because the provider already knows who they're dealing with before the paperwork starts. However, it doesn't scale by itself, which is why the platforms handling onboarding at volume are building it into the self-serve flow at the same time.
The sequence is the same: individual first, company second, documents third.
The regulatory floor is moving while you're reading this
FATF revised Recommendation 16, the Travel Rule standard, at its June 2025 Plenary. Jurisdictions have until the end of 2030 to implement the changes, but the direction, more standardised information requirements across the payment chain, is already set.
In the UK specifically, cryptoasset firms currently register under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. That's changing: the FCA's FSMA authorisation gateway opens on 30 September 2026, with the new full-authorisation regime expected from 25 October 2027. Firms already registered under the MLRs will still need to apply for FSMA authorisation, a heavier regime with capital requirements and conduct rules the current MLR registration doesn't carry.
None of this should change what a business submits today, but it should make you think very carefully about how you treat KYC in your business.
Onboarding-readiness checklist
Before starting onboarding with any crypto payment provider, have these ready:
- Identification for the individual who'll handle onboarding (this clears first, before anything else)
- UBO details for the company
- A plain description of the business and its nature of activity
- A list of the countries the business operates in or serves
- Incorporation documents and proof of business address
- Any relevant licences for the sector (gaming, financial services, etc.)
- A named point of contact for follow-up questions, since most onboarding at this stage still runs through direct conversation rather than a fully automated form
Having all seven ready before the individual KYC step starts will help you shorten the timeline.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between KYC and KYB?
KYC verifies the individual completing onboarding. KYB verifies the business itself, including its ownership structure and nature of activity. Most providers require KYC to clear first before KYB can begin.
What documents are required for KYC on a crypto payment platform?
At minimum, identification for the individual, followed by UBO details, a business description, countries of operation, and incorporation documents once corporate onboarding opens.
How long does KYC verification take for a business account?
It varies by provider and by how complete the submission is. Onboarding moves fastest when all documents are ready before the individual KYC step starts, since that's the gate corporate onboarding waits behind.
Is KYC mandatory for crypto payment accounts?
Yes, under money laundering regulations in essentially every jurisdiction with a functioning crypto framework, and FATF's Travel Rule adoption is only extending that further.
Why does a crypto payment provider ask about countries of operation?
That answer, along with the nature-of-business description, feeds directly into the risk rating and the source-of-funds questions that shape the rest of onboarding and ongoing monitoring.