Elevating know your business (KYB) in 2026

Everything you need to know about perpetual KYB software

Know your business (KYB) is the process organizations use to answer the question, “Who am I really doing business with?” For teams implementing KYB, getting that answer right helps reduce exposure to financial crime and build trust with regulators, customers, and partners.

KYB software has made verifying business customers faster and more reliable by automating reviews and standardizing risk assessments. The problem is that traditional KYB still relies on point-in-time snapshots that can quickly become outdated. 

Perpetual know your business (pKYB) was designed to fill that gap.

Like perpetual KYC, perpetual KYB introduces continuous oversight to business identity. Instead of treating KYB as a one-time onboarding hurdle, pKYB enables teams to monitor business entities throughout their entire lifecycle. Events like ownership changes, new filings, sanctions exposure, or adverse media signals are evaluated as they happen.

By closing the gap between onboarding and ongoing transaction risk, perpetual KYB ensures that every business in your ecosystem is assessed against current data at both the entity and ownership level. That continuous visibility supports stronger fraud decisioning, more resilient KYB compliance, and better alignment with global anti-money laundering (AML) compliance.

What are the components of a modern KYB process?

Today’s KYB processes bring structure, consistency, and risk context to business verification. While the exact workflows may vary by institution, effective KYB programs are built on the following core components.

Business data collection and verification

KYB begins with gathering accurate, up-to-date business information from authoritative data sources like business registration records maintained by official filing authorities. This includes a company’s legal name, registration number, jurisdiction, incorporation status, and operating addresses.

Risk-based assessment and scoring

Once data is collected, compliance teams evaluate potential risk factors, such as industry, geography, business structure, ownership complexity, and historical activity. By setting a risk score, teams can apply the right level of scrutiny without over-reviewing low-risk entities.

Document and identity validation

KYB workflows typically require document validation, such as articles of incorporation or business licenses, alongside identity verification for controlling individuals. These steps help confirm that both the business and its owners are real, authorized, and operating as claimed.

UBO verification

UBO verification is the process of identifying a business’s ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) — the individuals who ultimately own or control the entity. This includes validating beneficial ownership percentages and uncovering layered or complex corporate structures that may obscure control, like shell companies.

Screening and adverse signals

Modern KYB processes include screening the business and its UBOs against sanctions lists, global watchlists, politically exposed persons (PEPs), and adverse media. Ongoing screening ensures teams are alerted when new risk signals emerge after the initial onboarding KYB checks, helping maintain continuous AML compliance.

Ongoing monitoring and lifecycle management

Effective programs continue to assess risk throughout the relationship, allowing teams to maintain eligibility, stay audit-ready, and respond quickly to evolving threats.

Together, these six elements answer the core questions every KYB program must resolve:

• Who is the business?
• How risky is it?
• Are the documents and people real?
• Who ultimately controls it?
• Are there external red flags?
• How do we monitor risk over time?

Challenges with traditional KYB processes

Most KYB programs were designed to capture a portrait of risk at a specific moment in time. In many cases, a business is reviewed at onboarding, approved based on the information available that day, and then largely left alone for the remainder of the business relationship (at least until the next scheduled refresh).

Periodic reviews assume that business risk is mostly static. In reality, businesses evolve continuously. When ownership structures change, which they often do, those changes rarely align with a fixed KYB review cycle. New controlling parties emerge, and business operations change in ways that materially affect risk, like engaging in illicit activities. 

When KYB is only revisited every six, twelve, or twenty-four months, these developments remain invisible. As a result, financial service providers may be unaware that their business customers are involved in criminal activities that began years after they passed the onboarding process. 

This creates a reactive posture that increases the risk of missed red flags and regulatory non-compliance. Teams are forced to respond after issues surface through audits, investigations, or regulatory inquiries rather than identifying risk as it develops. As regulatory expectations shift toward ongoing oversight, point-in-time KYB checks increasingly fall short of actual KYB requirements.

Learn why your KYB is only as good as your KYC

What perpetual KYB software does

Perpetual KYB software shifts KYB from a static review into a living process. Instead of treating verification as a series of disconnected checks, it brings business identity, ownership, and risk signals into a single, continuously updated system.

At the foundation is a unified KYB workflow with built-in functionality for continuous verification, screening, and decisioning. Modern platforms consolidate data sources and verification services in a central console, reducing handoffs and eliminating the need to stitch together information from multiple tools. Structured workflows help teams apply consistent standards while still adapting reviews based on evolving risk and regulatory requirements.

Connectivity is what makes that continuity possible. By integrating directly with business registries and trusted data providers through APIs, perpetual KYB platforms can verify business information in real time and refresh it as underlying records change. That means teams are no longer relying on stale filings or manual data pulls to understand who they are doing business with.

As new data arrives, intelligent systems continuously reassess risk factors and overall exposure. Clear, dynamic risk profiles help teams confidently approve legitimate businesses while identifying entities that begin to show suspicious behavior after the initial verification process. Rather than waiting for the next scheduled review, risk signals surface when they matter.

AI-powered engines further strengthen this approach by detecting anomalies, surfacing subtle changes, and reducing repetitive review work. The result is less operational friction for compliance teams and faster, more informed decisions without sacrificing control.

How do you know if a KYB software solution is perpetual?

Whether a platform offers perpetual KYB software or not depends on whether it treats KYB as an ongoing responsibility or simply extends onboarding checks over a longer timeline.

KYB doesn’t pause between review cycles, and neither does the technology supporting it. True perpetual KYB software continuously evaluates risk as new information becomes available, updating business profiles as risk signals emerge.

That continuity only works when AML checks and screening are fully embedded into the workflow. Sanctions exposure, watchlist updates, and adverse media must be reassessed automatically, with clear paths for investigation, remediation, and case management.

Ownership transparency and platform flexibility are also characteristics of a true perpetual KYB solution. Perpetual KYB systems adapt as regulatory compliance and business models change, whether that means supporting new geographies, verifying newly incorporated entities, or integrating emerging industries like crypto. Risk stays visible, decisions stay defensible, and compliance keeps pace with how businesses actually operate.

How automation improves KYB processes

Without built-in follow-through actions, meaningful oversight can quickly deteriorate into alert fatigue. By automating data checks, document verification, and risk assessments, teams reduce their reliance on manual review and subjective judgment. Decision-making becomes less time-consuming and more consistent, with fewer opportunities for human error along the way. This allows compliance teams to focus their expertise on complex or high-risk cases rather than routine verification.

Automation also makes timeliness possible, reinforcing a risk-based approach by escalating reviews only when meaningful changes occur. Real-time alerts notify teams as soon as ownership details change, new filings appear, or risk indicators emerge. Automated KYB lets financial institutions and fintechs respond immediately with enhanced due diligence (EDD) when higher-risk signals emerge.

Behind the scenes, automated data orchestration connects information from multiple sources into a single, continuously updated view of each business. This makes it possible to process higher volumes of applications from corporate clients, maintain in-life monitoring, and scale KYB operations without proportionally increasing cost or headcount. 

When applied correctly, automation does not remove control. Instead, it strengthens it by ensuring KYB decisions are based on current data, consistent logic, and a clear audit trail that supports both compliance and growth.

Perpetual KYB processes within global AML, fraud, and risk programs

Perpetual KYB becomes most valuable when it is treated as part of a broader risk strategy and overall compliance program. 

KYB verification is a core component of customer due diligence (CDD) and plays a key role in meeting global AML obligations. In the United States, ongoing oversight aligns with CDD expectations established under laws like the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and the USA PATRIOT Act, which require financial service providers to understand and monitor who they are doing business with over the course of the relationship. These laws are overseen by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

In the UK, similar expectations are reinforced through regulatory guidance from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and codified in the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017) and subsequent amendments.

Across Europe, financial institutions must also align with the expectations of local regulators and supervisory authorities — such as De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) in the Netherlands — when operating in or expanding into specific jurisdictions. Together, these frameworks reflect a shared regulatory expectation that business risk does not stop at onboarding.

In traditional programs, however, ownership and business data often lag behind reality. AML and fraud teams that build their understanding of a business based on that original assessment are effectively making decisions with incomplete context.

Continuity matters for financial crime detection. Many fraud and money laundering schemes rely on gradual changes that are easy to miss in periodic reviews. As regulator expectations continue to shift toward ongoing CDD, perpetual KYB helps organizations maintain a more accurate view of business risk throughout the relationship. By monitoring business identity and control throughout the lifecycle, financial institutions and fintechs are better positioned to identify emerging patterns before they escalate into losses or regulatory issues.

When embedded into AML and fraud programs, perpetual KYB orients teams away from reactive investigation to proactive risk management. Decisions are grounded in current data, alerts are tied to meaningful changes, and compliance efforts stay aligned with the daily operations of each company in the system.

How Alloy’s KYB software enhances perpetual KYB processes

Alloy gives fraud and compliance teams a single platform that continuously reverifies and reassesses business risk as registries, filings, and ownership information change. With direct integrations with the industry’s leading data solutions, Alloy can surface changes to UBO structures, sanctions exposure, adverse media, and business status as they happen. In addition, Alloy monitors for suspicious changes in a business’s own digital banking behavior and actions.

When high-risk changes are escalated for manual review, Alloy’s AI Assistant automates data aggregation across chosen vendors within Alloy’s solution partner network and open-ended web research to corroborate business and ownership changes, and run enhanced due diligence (EDD) for businesses as needed. 

By automatically keeping business identity current and decisions auditable, Alloy enables institutions to move beyond periodic KYB. Alloy helps institutions meet ongoing compliance requirements while reducing operational complexity. The result is a more resilient approach to business verification that aligns compliance with risk development.