Know Your Business (KYB)

What does Know Your Business mean?

KYB is the business equivalent of Know Your Customer. Instead of confirming a single person, you confirm that an organisation is real, legally registered, and controlled by the people it claims. In Australia that means checking the ABN on the Australian Business Register, the ACN and company status on the ASIC register, and identifying the natural people who ultimately own or control the entity. A concrete example: a new subcontractor asks to be added to your supplier master file and paid within the week. A KYB check confirms the ABN is active, the trading name matches ASIC records, and the directors are who the paperwork says, before a cent is committed.

Why it matters for Australian finance teams

Onboarding a supplier on trust is how ghost vendors and shell companies slip into a payment run. Once a fake entity is in the vendor master file, fraudulent invoices look routine. KYB also underpins AML/CTF obligations for reporting entities regulated by AUSTRAC, where identifying a business customer and its beneficial owners is a baseline requirement. For accounts payable, weak KYB means paying entities that may not exist or may not be who they claim.

How ezyshield helps

ezyshield verifies the person, the business via ABN and ASIC records, and bank account ownership before money moves, so a supplier is confirmed as real and correctly registered at onboarding. If key details change later, any change triggers re-verification instead of a silent update, and every check is written to an append-only audit trail, logged and never edited or deleted. See how it works and our guide to Know Your Business in Australia.