Know your business (KYB) is the company version of know your customer (KYC). Before opening an account, a provider checks the business itself and the people behind it. Telecom providers do this because phone numbers are allocated under regulatory conditions, because carriers require it, and because voice and SMS services attract fraud.
A KYB check usually covers:
- Legal existence: a company registry extract, registration number and status
- Tax identity: a valid VAT number (in the EU, checked against VIES)
- Address: proof such as a recent utility bill
- People: the directors or officers, and who has authority to sign
- The representative's identity: an ID document check, often with a liveness test
Providers keep the evidence and may review it again when the risk changes, for example when a customer orders numbers in a new country.
OVOKY company verification sends a signed link to the person holding the paperwork, checks the VAT number in VIES and the Belgian and French registries, reads utility bills and matches them to the address, traces the officer chain and runs an ID check with liveness. It ends with a three-party contract with a per-country annex, and OVOKY approves the account.