Adyen provides two ways for collecting verification information from your users:
- Upfront: users must complete full verification before they can process payments and receive payouts through your platform.
- Staggered: only the minimum required verification data is collected from users before they start using your platform, based on processing volume, country/region of operation, and other relevant factors.
A staggered verification approach is applied to your users by default. You can also enable upfront verification if necessary.
Upfront verification
In an upfront verification process, you collect all of the required verification information when you onboard your user. The information is verified after you create an account holder. You will not need to ask them for additional information if they reach a higher verification tier.
To enable upfront verification for an account holder, make a POST /legalEntities or PATCH /legalEntities/{id} request, and set the verificationPlan parameter to upfront.
Staggered verification
In a staggered verification process, you collect additional required information from users only when needed. Verification tiers determine what additional information needs to be collected and verified by Adyen to enable or continue payouts for account holders. When a user processes a higher amount of funds than the limit of their current tier, they are moved to a higher tier.
This approach is faster because not all users need to complete the full verification process. For example, users who only process smaller amounts are required to complete fewer verification checks, so they can be paid out quickly.
When a user is moved to a higher tier, their payouts are temporarily disallowed until they complete additional verification checks. Adyen informs you of these changes and what data needs to be provided through webhooks. After your user provides the data and Adyen verifies it, their payouts are allowed again.
Tiers
Tiers are determined by the user's country, legal entity, and processed amount. There are four tiers.
Processing volume is not the only factor in a user being moved to a higher tier. Triggered verification checks and requesting high-risk capabilities may result in account holders being moved to a higher tier.
For the following countries and regions, tiers for processed amounts are calculated based on their local currencies.
| User country/region | Currency |
|---|---|
| Australia | AUD |
| United States | USD |
| Canada | CAD |
| New Zealand | NZD |
| Singapore | SGD |
| Hong Kong | HKD |
| Other | EUR |