Enigma KYB Overview
Every new vendor, supplier, partner, or customer presents both an opportunity and a risk. Is it legitimate? Safe to work with? Compliant?
Manual verification is slow, expensive, and error-prone. It bottlenecks growth. It misses risks. It frustrates customers waiting days for approval. Enigma KYB verifies businesses in seconds - automatically.
Learn the Basics
Learn the fundamentals of business verification and industry best practices.
Explore Packages
Explore use cases, compare KYB packages, and understand pricing.
Start Building
Jump into technical integration. Make your first API request and start verifying businesses.
What is KYB?
Know Your Business (KYB) is the process of verifying a business's identity and legitimacy. It answers a fundamental question: "Is this business real, compliant, and safe to work with?"
KYB typically involves five core tasks:
- Name verification
- Address verification
- Officer & owner verification
- Domestic registration verification
- Watchlist (OFAC Sanctions) screening
For many organizations, KYB isn't optional — it's mandated by regulation. Financial institutions must comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. Payment processors face network rules requiring merchant verification. Beyond regulatory requirements, KYB prevents fraud, protects against counterparty risk, and streamlines onboarding.
Why Enigma KYB?
Best-in-Class Entity Resolution
Businesses — from Fortune 500 companies to corner delis — rarely use their legal name in commerce. "Instacart" is registered as "Maplebear Inc." A local restaurant operates as "Brooklyn Pizza" but is registered as "JPR Holdings LLC." Traditional data providers miss these matches entirely.
Enigma's entity resolution technology automatically matches operating, or doing business as (DBA), names to legal entities — at any scale:
- Large enterprises: "Instacart" → "Maplebear Inc" → Delaware registration filing
- Small businesses: "Brooklyn Pizza" → "JPR Holdings LLC" → New York state records
- Sole proprietors: "Paul's Auto Repair" → business license → owner identity verification
Entity resolution eliminates manual reviews caused by name mismatches. With Enigma KYB, you get matches others miss — from billion-dollar companies to sole proprietorships.
Unmatched Data Coverage
Enigma's data includes more than 100 million business registrations from all 52 US jurisdictions (all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico) and 200+ authoritative sources, including:
- Secretary of State offices
- Federal business registries
- Commercial databases
- Licensing authorities
Enigma's data is updated continuously, unlike quarterly dumps that get stale, as with other data providers. See the Enigma Data Model to learn more about the data and how it is updated.
Flexible Solutions and Integrations
With Enigma KYB, you don't have to re-engineer your existing systems and workflows to get the data you need. It integrates seamlessly with the way you already work. Enigma partners and integrates with most compliance workflow orchestration platforms including Alloy, Taktile, Oscilar, Hummingbird, and more. These partners will help you integrate Enigma's KYB API into your workflow with minimal effort. If you're integrating Enigma into your own systems, you can make your first KYB API request in minutes.
With flexible packages, you only pay for the information you need. You can start with simple identity confirmation and later upgrade to full verification as your needs evolve. You can even add optional TIN verification, Watchlist (OFAC Sanctions) screening, or SSN verification to either package as needed.
FAQ
How do I know if Enigma does not have an attribute for a business?
If the KYB API returns a match, then the key for each attribute in the package you specified will be included in the response, even if the value is null. If the KYB API does not return a match, then no attribute keys will be included in the response.
How can I retrieve a business’s ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) from Enigma?
Enigma collects data on businesses that are registered with US jurisdictions, which do not publish information on the UBOs of businesses. Enigma offers the best available public information on possible business UBOs, generally sourced from officers on Secretary of State (SoS) registrations. This information can be used to verify whether a provided UBO name is associated with a business through the SoS registration. If you handle a high volume of UBO verifications and are interested in participating in a UBO data consortium, please contact us.
Does Enigma offer manual lookups of companies that aren’t automatically surfaced?
Enigma does not currently offer manual lookups of companies. However, Enigma partners with most major workflow platforms that offer manual lookups. Contact us if you’d like our recommendation on a workflow platform partner for manual lookups.
Does Enigma offer document retrieval?
Enigma does not currently offer document retrieval. For infrequent lookup needs, document retrieval can be done by looking up the business directly on the Secretary of State website for the state of the business's primary domestic registration. For frequent lookup needs, Enigma works with workflow platform partners that offer automated document retrieval. Contact us if you’d like our recommendation on a workflow platform partner for document retrieval.
How is US KYB different from global KYB? Do all businesses have a federal ID?
KYB regulations and data accessibility vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Conducting business in the U.S. with a global entity requires that a financial institution adheres to U.S. regulations, including surfacing any available registration filings and conducting a KYC check on the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO). While all US businesses have a TIN/EIN to verify against, other countries may not provide this information. Global KYB requires specialized data service providers that can verify across multiple countries.
Does Enigma offer KYB for businesses registered outside of the U.S?
Enigma offers best-in-class U.S. business data and identity verification services. Enigma does not have plans to expand the KYB offering outside the U.S. Contact us if you’d like our recommendation on a global partner.