Verifying Business Entities

Business Entities must be onboarded and verified before payments can be sent to vendors

Why do I need to provide personal information for the business's controller and owner(s)?

In order to comply with Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, you will be required to provide personal information on your business controller and beneficial owner(s). A controller is any natural individual who holds significant responsibilities to control, manage, or direct a company or other corporate entity (i.e. CEO, CFO, General Partner, President, etc). A company may have more than one controller, but only one controller’s information must be collected. A beneficial owner is any natural person who, directly or indirectly, owns 25% or more of the equity interests of the company.

Legal entities, whether domestic or foreign, can be used to facilitate money laundering and other crimes because their true ownership can be concealed. The collection of beneficial ownership information by banks about legal entity customers can provide law enforcement with key details about suspected criminals who use legal entity structures to conceal their illicit activity and assets. Requiring legal entity customers seeking access to banks to disclose identifying information, such as the name, date of birth, and Social Security Number of natural persons who own or control them will make such entities more transparent, and thus less attractive to criminals and those who assist them.

Learn more about the FFIEC BSA/AML Beneficial Ownership Requirements.

What are best practices when capturing personal identification documentation?

To avoid documents being rejected, please review the following best practices when taking photos of personal identification documentation. Personal identification documentation must be taken with a camera (scanners are not allowed):

• All 4 Edges of the document should be visible

• A dark/high contrast background should be used

• At least 90% of the image should be the document

• Should be at least 300dpi

• Capture image from directly above the document

• Make sure that the image is properly aligned, not rotated, tilted or skewed

• No flash to reduce glare

• No black and white documents

• No expired IDs

My business verification is stuck / my ID upload didn’t match. What should I do?

If your business verification is unable to complete due to an ID mismatch or verification issue, please contact Charted Support at [email protected]. We’ll review the status and guide you on the next steps.

Why do I need a unique email address for each business entity?

Each business entity requires a unique email address for verification and notifications. If you don’t have separate inboxes, you can often use “+” aliasing to create unique addresses that still route to the same inbox (you should test this with your email provider).

Example: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].