Entity verification documents

Learn how to provide the documents that entities need for seamless payments onboarding.

Overview

Before an [entity](../../entitiesindex can make or receive payments via Monite, it needs to provide the verification documents that prove the business registration and the identity of the business owners and key persons. Document verification is an essential part of the payments onboarding process.

Providing the documents is a two-step process:

  1. Upload the documents to Monite.
  2. Connect the uploaded documents to the entity.

Document types

Acceptable verification documents vary by country and may include:

  • passport or identity card scans,
  • business registration certificates,
  • extracts from the national business registry,
  • tax and/or VAT registrations,
  • proof of bank accounts,
  • and others.

Some document types require scans of both the front and back of the document.

Entity verification documents

The following document types are needed to verify the business information.

Document type*Description
verification_document_front
verification_document_back

For organizations: A document that establishes the business ID number, such as the company’s articles of incorporation.

For individuals: An identity document, such as a passport or a local ID card.

additional_verification_document_front
additional_verification_document_back		Used only for entities of type “individual”. A document showing the person’s address, such as a passport, local ID card, or bill from a well-known utility company.
proof_of_registrationUsed only for entities of type “organization”. One or more documents that prove the company’s registration with the national business registry.

* The types correspond to the field names in the POST /onboarding_documents request.

Person verification documents

This information applies only to entities of type “organization”. It does not apply to entities of type “individual”.

Entities of type “organization” may be required to provide information about their key persons during the onboarding process. The key persons include the primary representative, business owners, directors, and executives.

The following document types are needed to verify the identity and address of those persons.

Document type*Description
verification_document_front
verification_document_back		An identity document, such as a passport or local ID card.
additional_verification_document_front
additional_verification_document_back		A document that shows the person’s address, such as a passport, local ID card, residence registration, or bill from a well-known utility company.

* The types correspond to the field names in the POST /persons/{person_id}/onboarding_documents request.

Step 1. Upload the documents

Start by uploading the documents or their scans to Monite. The documents are uploaded one by one.

To upload a single file, call POST /files and provide the data as a multipart/form-data request. Use the file field to pass the file, and set the file_type field to one of the following values:

  • identity_documents - use this value when uploading company registration documents or a person’s identity documents,
  • additional_identity_documents - use this value when uploading documents that verify a person’s address.
1curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/files' \
2     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-09-01' \
3     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'
4     -H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \
5     -F 'file=@passport.png;type=image/png' \
6     -F 'file_type=identity_documents'

The response returns the id assigned to the uploaded file. Note it down as you will need it later.

1{
2  "id": "d8e29d12-c045-470d-a984-08e158aab812",
3  "created_at": "2024-01-18T09:48:15.782992+00:00",
4  "updated_at": "2024-01-18T09:48:15.783001+00:00",
5  "file_type": "identity_documents",
6  "md5": "bbff083b8447c2854258a4582fa73dea",
7  "mimetype": "image/png",
8  "name": "passport.png",
9  ...
10  "size": 57190,
11  "url": "https://<bucketname>.s3.<region>.amazonaws.com/path/to/file.png"
12}

Repeat the requests to POST /files to upload all necessary documents.

Step 2. Connect the uploaded documents to the entity

Roles and permissions

To call the */onboarding_documents endpoints with an entity user token, this entity user must have a role with the create and update permissions for onboarding.

If using a partner-level token, no special permissions are needed.

Entity documents

To connect the uploaded documents to a specific entity, call POST /onboarding_documents and provide the document IDs in the corresponding fields in the request body. For a list of the field names, see Entity verification documents.

1curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/onboarding_documents' \
2     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-09-01' \
3     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
4     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'
5     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
6     -d '{
7       "verification_document_back": "5054d7bd-4ef1-4592-8757-222039009359",
8       "verification_document_front": "d8e29d12-c045-470d-a984-08e158aab812",
9       "additional_verification_document_back": "3fa85f64-5717-4562-b3fc-2c963f66afa6",
10       "additional_verification_document_front": "db9b2cbf-11be-48ad-a98c-aa0e7741ecd1",
11       "proof_of_registration": [
12         "941e7824-8a97-4d70-9828-c1054f433e3f",
13         "79c85f7f-db31-4c61-9973-3cc5e9c1de61"
14       ]
15     }'

Person documents

To connect the uploaded documents to a specific person, call POST /persons/{person_id}/onboarding_documents and provide the document IDs in the corresponding fields in the request body. For a list of the field names, see Person verification documents.

1curl -X POST 'https://api.sandbox.monite.com/v1/persons/aea39...912/onboarding_documents' \
2     -H 'X-Monite-Version: 2023-09-01' \
3     -H 'X-Monite-Entity-Id: ENTITY_ID' \
4     -H 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN'
5     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
6     -d '{
7       "verification_document_front": "1eb076a8-9834-4d9d-980b-bbc90e692100",
8       "verification_document_back": "76b70868-6cc6-406b-8534-961460434397",
9       "additional_verification_document_front": "4547d19b-4dd8-4558-96ba-b2363cfa1526",
10       "additional_verification_document_back": "d8e49bdb-f27b-4243-b79c-b9f4fa25595e"
11     }'