---
title: "Know Your Customer (KYC)"
description: "The verification of an individual customer’s identity — who they are, checked against watchlists — before providing financial services."
reviewedBy: "Krisan Nichani, Chief Compliance Officer"
updated: "July 2026"
canonical: "https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/know-your-customer"
---

# Know Your Customer (KYC)

Know Your Customer (KYC) is the process of verifying an individual’s identity before providing financial services: collecting name, date of birth, address, and an identifying number, verifying them against reliable sources, and screening against sanctions and watchlists. In US banking it has three components — the Customer Identification Program (CIP), customer due diligence, and ongoing monitoring — and it is the foundation of a Bank Secrecy Act AML program.

KYC covers individuals; its business-entity counterpart is KYB — and the two meet at beneficial ownership, where the individuals behind an entity are identified and verified as people. KYC is also not one-and-done: programs refresh customer information and monitor activity against the profile it establishes.

KYC is one control inside a broader anti-money-laundering (AML) program. KYC establishes who the customer is; the rest of the program — transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, suspicious-activity reporting — builds on the profile it creates.

On Infinite, CIP/KYC runs at onboarding with screening on every payment and monitoring behind them — every decision made by a human. Hosted Flows provides the whitelabel onboarding front end, so platforms get compliant intake without building it.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the difference between KYC and KYB?

KYC verifies individuals; KYB verifies business entities — legal existence, good standing, and the beneficial owners behind them, who are themselves verified and screened as individuals. [Know Your Business (KYB)](https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/know-your-business.md)

### What is the difference between KYC and AML?

AML is the umbrella: the full program of controls — due diligence, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and reporting — required under laws like the Bank Secrecy Act. KYC is one component of it: verifying who the customer is at onboarding and keeping that profile current. [Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)](https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/bank-secrecy-act.md)

### Is KYC a one-time check?

No. Programs refresh customer information on a risk-based schedule and monitor transactions against the customer’s profile. On Infinite, screening also repeats at every payment, not just at onboarding. [Stablecoin compliance](https://infinite.net/use-cases/global-compliance)

## Where it fits on Infinite

- [Embedded Compliance](https://infinite.net/compliance/embedded)
- [Stablecoin compliance](https://infinite.net/use-cases/global-compliance)

## See also

- [Know Your Business (KYB)](https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/know-your-business.md)
- [Beneficial owner](https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/beneficial-owner.md)
- [Enhanced due diligence (EDD)](https://infinite.net/learn/glossary/enhanced-due-diligence.md)