Verifying your business in the UK

This article details documents that are required for organisations to open an account with Airwallex if your business is registered in the UK.

Verification, known as KYC or ‘Know your customer’, is a process that is required by regulators to offer financial services to organisations and individuals. It involves reviewing and maintaining information on parties that use our financial services.

For a UK Limited Company account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  1. Certificate of Incorporation
  2. Memorandum and articles of association or equivalent company constitution
  3. Personal ID and personal address of all Director(s)
  4. Personal ID and personal address of Ultimate Beneficiary Owner(s) (if applicable)

For a UK Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  1. Certificate of Incorporation
  2. Partnership Agreement
  3. Personal ID and personal address of all Limited Partners

For a UK Limited Partnership (LP) account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  1. Proof of full legal name and legal entities address (any bill or bank statement dated in the last 3 months addressed to the legal entity)
  2. Partnership Agreement
  3. Personal ID and personal address of all General and Limited Partners

For a UK General Partnership (Unlimited) account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  1. Proof of full legal name and legal entities address (any bill or bank statement dated in the last 3 months addressed to the legal entity)
  2. Partnership Agreement
  3. Personal ID and personal address of all General Partners

 *If not all the partners in your partnership are individuals, we will contact you for further information about your partnership structure.

For a UK Sole trader account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  1. Your Personal ID and personal address
  2. Proof of full legal name and legal entities address (any bill or bank statement dated in the last 3 months addressed to the legal entity)

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1. Business Information 

Certificate of Incorporation

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Partnership Agreement

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Proof of Business Address

Bank Statement Sample

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Bill Sample

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Authorisation Letter

We require a letter of authorisation signed by the directors for the authorised person to act on behalf of the company

Download Authorisation letter sample

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If your business has multiple legal entities that are registered in different countries/regions and would like to onboard them all at once, you may use this Global Authorisation Letter Template, instead of using a separate template per each country/region.

Click here to download the Global Authorisation Letter Template

Attestation or Declaration of Beneficial Ownership and Control

We may request for the Attestation or Declaration of Beneficial Ownership and Control if we are unable to fully identify the ownership structure of the business. Please provide us with a complete shareholding structure or ownership diagram that meets the following requirements:

  1. Please provide Full Name, Date of Birth, Nationality and % of Ownership for the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (any individuals with a 25% or more ownership share in the business)
  2. If there are no individual with a 25% or more ownership share in the business, then please declare in the shareholding structure.
  3. Please provide the registration country and shareholding percentage of each intermediary shareholding entity
  4. The Attestation should be on a company letterhead, signed by a director and dated within 6 months.

Download a sample of Attestation or Declaration of Beneficial Ownership and Control.

2. Personal Information

Director

Director is the individual of the company authorised with the legal power to represent, enter into binding obligations on behalf of the company in accordance with the law or articles of association of the company in default.

Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO)

Ultimate Beneficial owner refers to an individual who owns or controls, directly or indirectly, including through a trust or bearer shareholding, more than 25% of the issued share capital of the corporation.

Personal ID 

Please provide images for government issued, official photo ID, such as Passport, National ID or Driving Licence (if applicable).

Some valid ID examples are provided below:

1) Passport - All Countries

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2) Personal ID - e.g. HKID

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3) Driving Licence - e.g. UK Driving Licence

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Please note if the Director, UBO, or Partner is a Chinese citizen, only Chinese National ID (身份证) is acceptable, and both front and back side needed.

Chinese National ID sample:

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Financial Institution Onboarding Questionnaires

> If the Airwallex account will process funds of your underlying clients and your underlying clients will NOT be onboarded by Airwallex as a customer, then please fill out Questionnaire A

Click here to download Questionnaire A

> If the Airwallex account will process funds of your underlying clients and your underlying clients will be onboarded by Airwallex as a customer, then please fill out Questionnaire B

Click here to download Questionnaire B

> If the Airwallex account will ONLY be used as an operational account (i.e. operational expenses), please fill out Questionnaire C

Click here to download Questionnaire C

Live- Streaming Questionnaire

If you are operating a Live Streaming business, please complete the following questionnaire in order to meet our internal compliance requirements

Click here to download the Live- Streaming Questionnaire

Marketplace Questionnaire

If you are operating a Marketplace business, please complete the following questionnaire in order to meet our internal compliance requirements

Click here to download the Marketplace Questionnaire