As required by payment industry regulations, Adyen must verify the users in your platform before you can process payments, pay out their funds, and offer financial products to them. These verification checks are also called Know Your Customer (KYC) checks.
During this process, Adyen verifies that your users provide accurate information about their businesses. Based on the results of the KYC checks, Adyen decides if a user can perform any action on your platform. These actions are known as capabilities .
To see whether a user can use a specific capability on your platform, check the capability settings.
On this page, we describe:
When does Adyen verify users
Adyen verifies users before allowing them to use capabilities on your platform. The following are the events that trigger verification checks.
When you request capabilities for your user
In the design phase, you set the default capabilities for your platform. These capabilities are requested every time you onboard a new user and create an account holder for them. Adyen verifies the user and if they successfully complete the verification checks, they are allowed to use the capabilities.
If a user needs a specific capability that is not requested by default, you must request the additional capability. In some cases, this requires more verification.
When users change their data
When users change their data after they are already allowed to use capabilities, Adyen verifies them again.
If the updated data fails verification, in the future Adyen might set a deadline by which the user should resolve the issues. The user is allowed to continue using the capabilities while the deadline is active.
If the user does not resolve the verification issues in a timely manner, their capabilities will be disallowed.
When users move to a higher tier (staggered verification)
In a staggered verification, you collect data from the user based on their tier. When a user moves to a higher tier, the capabilities related to paying out are disallowed. For the capabilities related to accepting payments, in the future Adyen might add a deadline by which the user must provide additional required data. They would be allowed to use capabilities related to accepting payments while the deadline is in place.
If the user does not take action in a timely manner, the remaining capabilities will be disallowed.
When Adyen requires data reviews
Adyen may occasionally require users to review their data to ensure that it is up-to-date. Once the user confirms that they reviewed it, Adyen verifies them again.
Adyen sets a verification deadline by which the user must provide their confirmation. They are allowed to continue using their capabilities while the deadline is active.
If the user does not take action in a timely manner, their capabilities will be disallowed.
Verification deadlines
Verification deadlines are only available in v3 of the Legal Entity Management API.
For the events described above that trigger additional verification checks, Adyen may set a deadline to give the user enough time to resolve verification issues.
Users are allowed to continue using the capabilities while the deadline is active. To get the verification deadlines, make a GET /accountHolders/id request.
The diagrams in the next section show the process and the corresponding capability verification statuses and capability settings.
How the verification process works
In the following diagrams, you can see the process for events that trigger verification checks and the relationship between capability verification statuses and capability settings.
The illustrated verification process is as follows:
- You create an account holder or request new capabilities for your user.
- Adyen asynchronously checks if there are verification requirements that your user must fulfill.
- If the verification fails, user can fix the issues by providing new or updated data.
If the verification is successful, the user is allowed to use the capability.
Adyen sends all verification-related updates through webhooks. If Adyen has found reasons to not allow the capability, the capability verification status is set as rejected and the capability will not be allowed.
