Ownership risk

UBO Screening API for Beneficial Ownership

A company can be clear while its owners are not. Verifex traverses the ownership chain, applies OFAC 50% rule logic, and screens beneficial owners against sanctions, PEP, and watchlist sources — preserving evidence of the ownership path you reviewed.

Start in the dashboard. Integrate the API when the workflow is proven.

Start screening freeRead the OFAC 50% rule

Decision record

Evidence, not a black box

Reviewable
Coverage
Successful, unavailable, and stale sources remain explicit
Evidence
Publisher context and match reasoning travel with the result
Decision
Actionable, review, or clear semantics stay distinguishable
Audit
The screening state can be reconstructed later

Built around the reviewer

The right workflow starts with the decision you need to defend.

01

Fintechs and payment compliance

Onboarding business customers where ownership exposure matters as much as the entity itself.

02

Legal and accounting AML teams

Identifying beneficial owners and directors for client and counterparty files.

03

Trade and logistics compliance

Checking ownership of carriers, brokers, and vendors before doing business.

Clear scope

What the workflow does

  • Traverses ownership relationships to surface beneficial owners.
  • Applies OFAC 50% rule logic to flag indirect sanctions exposure.
  • Screens identified owners against sanctions, PEP, and watchlist sources.
  • Keeps ownership relationships distinct from risk records and records the path as evidence.

Honest boundaries

What it does not claim

  • Does not guarantee a complete ownership graph where source data is missing or undisclosed.
  • Does not make a final sanctions determination for indirect ownership.
  • Does not provide legal or compliance advice.

One workflow, two entry points

Prove the operation before you automate it.

The dashboard and API share the same screening semantics, so an operational pilot can become a production integration without redefining the decision.

No-code dashboard

Look up a company's ownership context in the dashboard and screen the owners it surfaces.

REST API

Call the UBO endpoint to traverse ownership and the screen endpoint on each owner. SDKs for Python, Node.js, Go, and Rust.

curl -X POST https://api.verifex.dev/v1/screen \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer vfx_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "Beneficial Owner Name", "type": "person"}'
Evidence by design

The result is useful now. The evidence makes it defensible later.

Each ownership review records the chain you traversed, the OFAC 50% rule signals, the owners screened, the sources matched, a timestamp, and a request ID — so you can show how an ownership-risk decision was reached.

Explore the evidence record

Questions before integration

Read the boundary conditions, not just the feature list.

What is the OFAC 50% rule?

The OFAC 50% rule treats entities owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by sanctioned persons as themselves sanctioned — even if not separately listed. Verifex applies this logic when traversing ownership.

How does UBO screening differ from company screening?

Company screening checks the entity itself. UBO screening looks behind the entity to its beneficial owners and screens them, because a clear company can have sanctioned owners.

Is the ownership graph always complete?

No. Ownership data depends on disclosed and public sources. Where ownership is undisclosed, the graph may be incomplete, and Verifex records what was available at screening time.

Does a clear UBO result guarantee no ownership risk?

No. A no-hit alone is not a clearance. Treat a result as clear only when Standard Screening is clearance-eligible, source coverage is complete, the candidate set is complete, and the result has zero matches. Otherwise the result remains unresolved and needs your policy or review. Verifex provides screening infrastructure and data-derived results, not legal or compliance advice.

Continue the story

UBO AnalysisOFAC 50% RuleKYB API (beta — UK Companies House)

Move from reading to evidence

Run a real workflow and inspect what comes back.

Verifex provides screening infrastructure and data-derived results, not legal or compliance advice. A no-hit alone is not a clearance. Treat a result as clear only when Standard Screening is clearance-eligible, source coverage is complete, the candidate set is complete, and the result has zero matches. Otherwise the result remains unresolved and needs your policy or review.

Start freeRead the docs