Customer identification and verification — KYC and KYB without guesswork.
Customer identification and verification — KYC and KYB without guesswork.
Before you enter a relationship you must know who the client is, who represents them and who stands behind them — and be able to prove it. Here is exactly what to collect and where to check it.
- Sanctions: MSWiA, EU, OFAC
- KNF warnings
- Beneficial owners (CRBR)
- Financials and filings
- Bankruptcy, liquidation, KRZ
- VAT status and accounts
- Press coverage
- 0–100 risk score and PDF
Money back if the report cannot be generated
For companies: the first 2 reports free (in Polish)
What the Act says
Identifying and verifying the customer is the first of the customer due diligence measures an obliged entity applies to every client (art. 34(1) of the Act of 1 March 2018 on counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing). The Act separates three actions:
- identifying the customer — for a company: name, legal form, registered address, NIP or country of registration and registration number, plus the details of the person representing the customer (art. 36(1));
- identifying the beneficial owner — name and, as far as it can be established, citizenship, PESEL or date of birth (art. 36(2));
- verification — confirming the data against an identity document, a document with current register data, or other reliable and independent sources (art. 37).
Verification takes place before the business relationship is established or the occasional transaction is carried out. Completing it while the relationship is being set up is allowed only when necessary to keep the business running and the risk is low (art. 39). If the measures cannot be applied, the entity does not enter the relationship or carry out the transaction (art. 41). Full text: isap.sejm.gov.pl.
KYC ("know your customer") in the Polish Act is the identification of a natural person; KYB ("know your business") covers the company, its representatives and owners. With a corporate client you do both at once.
Five steps from a NIP to a signed note.
NIP → KRS or CEIDG
Check that the company exists, in what legal form and with what status: current, struck off, in liquidation. Compare the name and address with what the client gave you. Companies are in KRS, sole traders in CEIDG.
Representation
Establish who signs the contract and whether they may: a board member under the KRS representation rule, a proxy holder, an attorney with a power of attorney. Identify that person as a natural person — name, PESEL or date of birth, document.
Beneficial owner
Pull the CRBR filing and set it against the shareholder list in KRS. If a shareholder is another company, go one level up. A discrepancy between the registers needs an explanation — and, from an obliged entity, a report (art. 61a).
Sanctions and PEP for every person
Screen every person you established — board, proxy holders, shareholders, owners — and the company itself against sanctions lists. PEP status comes from a declaration and your own sources (art. 46).
Record in the file
Note what you checked, when, in which source and with what result. Attach dated copies or printouts. The note is signed by the person who did the verification. This is the document you show at an inspection.
Where KYC most often falls apart.
Four situations that keep appearing in inspection reports.
How the report helps
The complete AMLA dossier performs steps 1–4 in one run: from a NIP it pulls KRS or CEIDG, the VAT white list, GUS REGON and VIES, sets the CRBR beneficial owners against the KRS shareholders, and then screens the company and every established person against sanctions lists — OpenSanctions (incl. the MSWiA list), the EU list, OFAC SDN and KNF warnings. Obliged entities that make a declaration at checkout also see PEP and RCA status.
The result arrives as a PDF with an identifier and a timestamp; the document can be confirmed on the verification page. Every finding names its source and retrieval date — exactly what step 5 requires. Persons whose KRS data is published in masked form cannot be screened automatically; the report says so clearly, so you can ask the client.
Step 5 stays with you: the report is evidence of the checks performed, while the decision to enter the relationship and the signature on the note belong to the entity's staff. See also: beneficial owner, sanctions and PEP, customer risk assessment. The scoring rules are in the methodology.
Legal status as of October 2026. Information only, not legal advice.
Registers free, people and sanctions in the full report.
Step 1 — KRS, white list, REGON, VIES — costs nothing. Representatives, owners, sanctions lists and PEP are in the AMLA dossier; packs are at /pakiety, and companies get the first 2 reports free.
Questions about customer identification.
Check a client by NIP.
KRS, CRBR, sanctions lists and PEP for the company and every person — in one timestamped PDF, in up to 3 minutes.