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An identity is the person or business money is moved on behalf of. Every identity carries the underlying data Borderless passes to your providers — for compliance checks, audits, regulatory inquiries, and travel rule compliance. Providers handle compliance in one of two models, and the difference shows up in the identity’s lifecycle. Some providers run their own checks on each identity: the check moves through Under Review to Approved (or Rejected, which you can usually fix — see below). Others rely on your organization’s own compliance program: there’s no provider-side review, and the identity moves straight to Pre Approved. In both models the identity’s data is on file with the provider from then on. One identity in Borderless maps to every provider you use and each provider’s compliance model. The platform shows you exactly where that identity stands across the network — approved with one provider, ready to onboard into another, two documents short of a third — and walks you through closing each gap. This guide covers creating an identity (KYC for individuals, KYB for businesses), onboarding it into your providers, reading its compliance status, and fixing a rejected or incomplete check.

Before you start

Some actions on this page are role-gated and simply won’t appear if you lack permission: creating an identity, editing one, deleting one, uploading documents, viewing uploaded documents, starting or restarting a compliance check, and adding a payment instruction each require a specific permission. If you don’t see a button described below, ask an admin on your account to grant it.

Create an identity

  1. Go to Identities in the navigation and click Create Identity.
  2. On the first step, choose an Identity Purpose:
    • Originator — for full financial use: holding an account, sending, and receiving funds. Requires a compliance check after creation.
    • Beneficiary — a payment recipient only. Needs minimal information and skips compliance checks entirely. You can upgrade a beneficiary to an originator later.
  3. Choose an Identity Type: Personal (an individual) or Business (a company or organization).
  4. Click Next.
[Screenshot: Create Identity type step with Originator/Beneficiary and Personal/Business options] What you fill in next depends on that choice.

Personal details

Enter First Name, Last Name, Email, and Birthday Date (the person must be 18 or older). Tax ID is required if the person’s country is the US. Phone is optional. Fill in the address block: Country, City, Street Address, and optionally Additional Address. State Code or Region is required for US addresses (note: New York and Alaska aren’t supported for any US identity, regardless of which compliance provider you use). Postal Code is required where the country has one. If the person is from a restricted country or is 60 or older, the form asks for additional identification details — some providers need this to process their transactions. An Optional Details section lets you add middle name, second last name, occupation, and sex, none of which are required. If the person’s address country is in the EEA, the form adds a few more fields: Country of Birth and Nationalities (both required), City of Birth (optional, becomes mandatory under EU law in 2027), and a Has Foreign Tax Registration checkbox (check it if they hold tax registrations outside their country of residence — required from 2026-12-31). For a beneficiary, the form only requires first name, last name, email, and address (country, city, street).

Business details

Enter contact information (Email, Phone) and the same address block as above, then move to business details: Legal Name is required. The rest — Trade Name, Business Type, Website, Description, Date of Incorporation, Tax ID, Industry Code (NAICS 2022), Source of Funds, and Account Purpose — are flagged but won’t block you from saving. Business Registration Number becomes required if the business is incorporated in the EEA. Has Foreign Tax Registration only appears for businesses incorporated in the EEA (check it if the business holds tax registrations outside its incorporation country). Has Material Intermediary Ownership appears for every business regardless of where it’s incorporated — check it if another legal entity holds 25% or more of the business. An Optional Details section covers source-of-funds detail, high-risk activities, whether the business Operates in Prohibited Countries, and money-services questions: if you check Conducts Money Services, you’ll need to describe it and explain your compliance screening; a sub-checkbox, Conducts Money Services Using Bridge, appears underneath and requires a flow-of-funds document if checked. Note that for a business originator, this form comes after the beneficial owners step described below, not before it — the on-screen order is beneficial owners first, then this form. Business beneficiaries go straight to this form. [Screenshot: Business Details form with Legal Name and Source of Funds fields]

Beneficial owners (business originators only)

If you’re creating a business originator, you’ll add beneficial owners first — this step appears before the business details form covered above, not after it. Select owners from your existing personal identities — you can’t add a new one inline here, so create the person as a personal identity first if they don’t exist yet. For each owner, check any of Has Ownership, Has Control, Is Signer, Is Director that apply. Relationship Establishment Date is always required, regardless of which boxes are checked. Checking Has Control unlocks Control Person Role (required) and reveals Ownership percentage as a preferred (not required) field, plus an Attested Ownership Structure Date. Checking Has Ownership makes Ownership percentage required instead of just preferred. The validation across all the owners you add works in two independent parts. First, some owner needs Has Control and some owner needs Is Signer — it doesn’t have to be the same person. Second, either some owner needs Has Ownership, or — if no one does — some owner needs both Has Control and an Attested Ownership Structure Date filled in. In other words, you can satisfy the ownership half of the rule without designating anyone as a 25%+ owner, as long as a control person attests to the ownership structure instead. If the business is incorporated in the EEA, every beneficial owner effectively needs Is Director checked too — Bridge’s MiCA/EMI regime requires it as of 2026-06-15. If someone is a signer but not a director, owner, or control person, you’ll need to upload a Letter of Authority for them afterward — you can only do this once the owner record is saved.

Finish

Click Save. Beneficiary identities go straight to a success screen. Originators move to the Compliance Check step next.

Onboard an identity into a provider

This step appears right after creating an originator, and any time you click Compliance on an identity’s details page. Each provider’s card lists that provider’s exact requirements and whether the identity currently meets them — Borderless knows every provider’s compliance model, so instead of digging through provider documentation you see the precise gap and a button to close it.
  1. If a provider isn’t already selected, choose one from the Provider list.
  2. Review the provider’s card: requirements show as either “All requirements must be met before starting” or “All requirements are met. You can proceed with compliance check.”
  3. If anything’s missing, each unmet requirement has its own action next to it — Edit Identity, Upload Documents, Copy ToS Link, or Provide API Keys. Resolve them one by one; the card re-checks against the provider’s requirements as you go.
  4. Once everything’s met, click Start Check.
[Screenshot: Compliance Check step with a provider card and Start Check button] Once a check starts, you’ll see a confirmation that it’s been kicked off — reviews take time, and you can close the window and track progress from the identity’s details page. Click Go to identity details to head there now, or Skip for now to leave without starting a check (this becomes Close specifically when the provider you currently have selected is already approved). If every provider for this identity is already approved or in progress, you’ll see a separate message that there’s nothing left to start here — this is independent of the Skip/Close button label, which only tracks the currently selected provider.

Read an identity’s compliance status

Open the identity from the Identities list and scroll to Compliance Status. This is the identity’s map across your whole provider network: where it’s approved, what’s in review, and what it would take to onboard it anywhere else. A summary line tallies things like “2 escalations · 1 action needed · 3 in review.” Providers are grouped into five sections, in priority order:
  1. Escalations required — a rejection that needs your compliance team, not a self-service fix (fraud, geographic restrictions, and similar). There’s no retry button here — only a way to copy the details for a ticket and acknowledge that you’ve seen it.
  2. Actions needed — a rejection or incomplete check you can fix yourself (missing document, wrong detail).
  3. In review — the provider is actively processing the check.
  4. Approved providers — you can transact through this provider. The status reads Approved when the provider ran its own check, or Pre Approved when the provider relies on your compliance program.
  5. Available providers — not started yet.
[Screenshot: Compliance Status section showing the five grouped provider buckets] Search providers or countries using the field at the top of the section. Groups with nothing in them don’t appear at all. An identity shows a green Verified badge on the list and details page once it has an approved compliance check.

Fix a rejected or incomplete check

Open the provider’s row in Actions needed. Each listed reason has a specific action attached — Upload Document, Upload Selfie, Upload Address Proof, Edit Identity, Edit Address Details, Edit Business Details, Upload Business Document (for a rejected business license, formation document, or ownership document), or Retry Check — based on what caused the rejection. Click it, resolve the issue, and the check re-runs. If the provider is in Escalations required instead, there’s no fix button. Click the copy icon to copy the reason details for your compliance team, and use the acknowledge toggle once you’ve reviewed it. Acknowledging is stored in your browser only — it isn’t shared with teammates or synced to the backend, so someone else looking at the same identity on a different machine will still see it as unacknowledged. Providers can also raise a request for information (RFI) while reviewing an identity — identity compliance is where most RFIs come from, with the rest tied to specific transactions. These arrive as cases you reply to in the platform; see RFI Case Management.

Sync changes to an approved provider

If you edit an identity’s details after it’s already been approved, click Sync changes on that provider’s row in the Approved providers group. This pushes your edits to the provider without re-running the full check. Use Restart Check instead only for a provider in Actions needed — that re-runs the check from scratch.

Upload documents

  1. From an identity’s details page, click Upload Docs (or, from the Compliance Check step, use the Upload Document(s) action on a requirement).
  2. Choose a document type. Types already on file are marked Uploaded.
  3. Enter the document’s details — issuing country, ID number, issued and expiration dates — whichever apply to that type. For a Proof of Address document, a Document Sub-Type dropdown also appears: Utility Bill, Bank Statement, Rental Agreement, Tax Document, or Government Correspondence.
  4. Click Continue.
  5. Upload the file for Front of document (or Document, if only one side is needed) and Back of document if the type requires both sides. Supported formats are PDF, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, and TIF.
  6. Click Submit.
[Screenshot: Upload Documents step showing front and back file inputs] Personal identities can upload: passport, ID card, driver’s license, residence permit, proof of address, source of funds, individual holding, bank verification number, selfie, letter of authority, and tax ID. Business identities can upload: formation, ownership, proof of address, source of funds, evidence of good standing, proof of nature of business, and tax ID.

Edit an identity

Click Edit on the identity’s details page. For a personal identity, this reopens the same form you filled in at creation. For a business identity, it’s a three-step wizard: Edit Contact Information, Edit Business Details, Edit Beneficial Owners. Click Continue between steps and Update to save. Note this order puts business details before beneficial owners — the opposite of the order you see when creating a business originator (beneficial owners first). If the identity already has an approved compliance check, remember to use Sync changes afterward so the provider sees your edits.

Delete an identity, a document, or a provider record

  • Delete an identity from the list or its details page. You’ll be asked to confirm — this can’t be undone.
  • Delete a document from its menu on the details page. Also permanent.
  • Delete a provider record, from a provider’s row in Compliance Status, removes that provider’s customer record for this identity entirely — not just the check status. You’ll see a warning that this is permanent before you confirm. Use this only if you need to start over with that provider from scratch. This button appears in Actions needed, In review, and Approved providers, but not in Escalations required or Available providers.

Troubleshooting

A beneficiary identity never shows a compliance step. That’s expected — beneficiaries skip compliance checks by design, so their “Verified” badge won’t populate either. I can’t tell why Save fails on beneficial owners. The validation applies across the whole group of owners, not to one row. Check that some owner (any owner) has Has Control and some owner (any owner, can be a different person) has Is Signer. Then check that either some owner has Has Ownership, or — if not — some owner has both Has Control and an Attested Ownership Structure Date filled in. A Letter of Authority is required but I can’t upload it yet. Save the beneficial owner first, then upload the document from the identity’s details page. Extra fields appeared that I didn’t expect. Businesses incorporated in the EEA get additional required fields — Business Registration Number, Has Foreign Tax Registration, and director information. This is tied to the business’s country, not a bug. Uploading a document fails with a generic error. Try again; if it keeps failing, check the file size and format (PDF, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or TIF). A message mentioning content size means the file is too large — try a smaller file or a different format. A provider shows “Not Started” even though I thought I fixed everything. An incomplete check with no listed reasons is treated as never actually submitted. Open the provider’s requirements and confirm everything shows as met, then click Start Check. I need to hand off an escalation to a teammate. Acknowledging a reason only affects your own browser. Use Copy reason details and share it directly — don’t rely on the acknowledge toggle to notify anyone else.