Director Verification

Director Verification: Why Payment Providers Check Company Directors Separately From Owners A shareholder register answers one question. A director register answers another. A signature on a payment-provider agreement can raise a third. Who owns the company? Who manages or governs it? Who is actually authorized to act for it? Those answers can point to the same person—but they do not have to. That is why director verification should not be treated as redundant simply because a merchant has already supplied information about its ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). Ownership and management authority are different corporate relationships. Likewise, a person authorized to complete a PSP application may be a director, but does not necessarily have to be one. At the international-standard level, FATF's customer-due-diligence framework separates identification of beneficial owners from information about relevant senior management. It also separately requires financial institutions, under the FATF framework, to establish that a person acting for a customer is authorized and to identify and verify that person. FATF is an international standard setter rather than a national legislature; the precise legal implementation depends on jurisdiction. For merchants, the practical rule is: Director verification answers a different question from ownership verification: who is managing, governing, or—depending on the role—able to represent the company?

The exact director information a payment service provider (PSP), acquirer, bank, or other regulated party requires varies by jurisdiction, merchant structure, provider, product, and risk context. Current provider documentation illustrates that variation clearly: Checkout.com, for example, currently lists directors among individuals it may verify for UK and Singapore businesses, while its published stakeholder requirements differ for several other regions. What is director verification? In payment onboarding, director verification is the process of establishing relevant facts about a person identified as a director of the merchant company. Depending on the applicable framework and provider, those facts can include: * whether the person is actually associated with the legal entity in the stated director or management role; * whether that relationship is current; * who the person is; * whether supplied identity information is consistent with company or independent records; and * where relevant, whether the person has authority to represent or bind the merchant in the particular relationship. Those are separate questions. A corporate registry entry may help establish the role. An identity-verification process may help establish the person. Articles of association, corporate resolutions, powers of attorney, provider attestations, or other accepted evidence may help establish authority, depending on the situation. One piece of evidence should not automatically be assumed to prove all three.

Why isn't beneficial-owner verification enough? Because a director and a beneficial owner describe different relationships with the company. A beneficial owner or UBO is analyzed through applicable ownership and control tests. A director occupies a governance, management, or equivalent corporate role under the relevant legal structure. An authorized representative or signatory is acting for the company in a specific relationship. A person can therefore be: Person's relationship Director? UBO? Authorized representative? Founder who sits on the board and signs the PSP agreement Possibly Possibly Possibly Independent/non-owner director Yes Not necessarily Possibly Passive major owner who is not involved in management No Possibly Not necessarily CFO authorized to sign but not appointed as a director Not necessarily Not necessarily Possibly Employee completing operational onboarding Not necessarily Not necessarily Possibly, if properly authorized The table is conceptual rather than a statement of any single jurisdiction's corporate law. FATF's current standards reinforce the underlying distinction. Its guidance treats company directors as part of a legal person's basic corporate information while separately requiring identification of beneficial owners. FATF's current glossary also explicitly distinguishes a nominee director from a beneficial owner, demonstrating that acting in a director capacity does not itself establish beneficial ownership. That is the mistake merchants should avoid:

"We provided the owners, so you already know the directors." The ownership structure may not answer that question at all. The Director Verification Map A practical director-verification process can be understood as seven linked checks: Director record ↓ Registry or company evidence ↓ Identity ↓ Current role ↓ Authority / signatory relationship where relevant ↓ Consistency checks ↓ Mismatch resolution The important point is that each stage establishes a different fact. 1. Director record: who does the merchant say the director is? The process begins with declared information. That may include, depending on the provider: * full legal name; * role or title; * date of birth; * residential information; * nationality; * identification information; or * relationship to the legal entity. The declaration is a starting point. It is not the same as verification. Current Checkout.com documentation, for example, separates the stakeholders it may verify by region and sets out different personal-data requirements for those roles. In its UK matrix, UBOs, a control person, a director, and an authorized signatory are separately identified stakeholder categories. 2. Registry or company evidence: is the claimed relationship supported? The next question is not: "Does this person have a passport?" It is: "What establishes that this person is actually a director of this company?" Potential sources can include, where applicable and accepted: * official company-register information; * current corporate filings;

* incorporation or constitutional records; * company records; * appointment records; * proof-of-registration evidence; or * another authoritative or provider-accepted source. FATF's beneficial-ownership guidance says that company registries should contain basic information including a list of directors. But the same guidance warns that registry practices vary considerably between countries: some registries function largely as repositories and may not independently check all submitted information, and information may not always be reliably current. This creates an important distinction: Being listed in a registry and having a currently verified identity are not necessarily the same thing. Nor should a merchant assume that every country's registry has the same data quality, verification practices, public access, or update speed. 3. Identity: is the director actually the person claimed? Once the relevant natural person has been identified, the identity question is separate from the corporate-role question. Depending on jurisdiction and provider, identity verification can involve combinations of: * identity details supplied electronically; * identity documents; * electronic identity verification; * independent data sources; * government or registry information; * address information; * additional checks where automated verification does not resolve the person's identity. Exact acceptable documents and fields should never be generalized globally.

Checkout.com's current requirements illustrate the point. Its accepted identity information and documents vary across regions, and its documentation notes that some individual information may be sourced automatically depending on location, while documentation may be required in other circumstances. The merchant therefore needs to distinguish: Person declared from: Person identified from: Identity verified from: Corporate relationship verified Those are not synonyms. A useful UK example: director status and ownership/control are visibly separate The United Kingdom now provides an especially clear illustration of the difference between a director and an ownership/control role. Since November 18, 2025, Companies House has been phasing in statutory identity verification requirements for company directors and people with significant control (PSCs), with the transition running according to each person's applicable due date. Companies House describes directors and PSCs as separate roles that are both subject to the new identity-verification regime. This is a UK corporate-registry requirement, not a global PSP rule. Its value as an example is conceptual: even within one official company-information system, the person involved in running the company and the person involved in owning or controlling it are not collapsed into a single role.

A payment provider conducting its own onboarding still applies the verification requirements relevant to that provider, regulated entity, product, and merchant relationship. 4. Current role: does the information describe the company today? A director-verification check can become complicated when the merchant's information and an external source describe different moments in time. For example: Merchant application: Director A Company record: Director B Neither data point alone explains what happened. Possible legitimate explanations could include: * a recent appointment; * a recent resignation; * a filing that has not yet been reflected in a source being checked; * an internal record that is out of date; * a group-company confusion; or * a simple application error. The correct response is not to assume fraud. It is to resolve the relationship. The merchant should be able to answer: Who is currently a director of the specific legal entity being onboarded, and what evidence supports that position? Stripe's current Connect verification documentation gives a provider-specific example of how such relationship discrepancies can become explicit verification errors. Its documentation includes errors for missing directors and for directors appearing in documentation but not in the account information, with remediation focused on reconciling the account and current registration evidence. That is Stripe Connect's documented process, not a universal PSP workflow.

But it demonstrates why role consistency can be its own verification problem. 5. Authority: is this director also the person permitted to represent the merchant? Director verification and representative-authority verification overlap, but they should not be merged. FATF's current Recommendation 10 interpretive note says that when a person purports to act on behalf of a customer, financial institutions should verify that the person is authorized and identify and verify that person's identity. That produces two different questions: Who is this person? and: Why may this person act for the company? A director may have the necessary authority under the relevant corporate arrangement. But a different person may have been appointed to act for the merchant. Current provider documentation illustrates the distinction. Adyen, in its published platform-verification documentation, distinguishes owners, controllers, and signatories. It defines signatories as officers or representatives who can legally represent the organization toward Adyen and are authorized to enter into a binding agreement with Adyen on its behalf. Checkout.com likewise separately identifies directors and authorized signatories in applicable regional onboarding requirements. For UK companies, its current documentation specifically notes a power-of-attorney requirement for an authorized signatory where that person is not a director. The merchant lesson is simple:

A verified director is not automatically the same thing as the authorized representative for every payment relationship. The provider may need to understand both roles. Director versus authorized representative This distinction is particularly important when the employee filling in the PSP application is not on the company's board. Consider the relationship map: Legal entity → Director: corporate management/governance role → UBO: ultimate ownership/control relationship under the applicable test → Authorized representative: person empowered to act for the merchant in the relevant relationship The same natural person may occupy several boxes. But the provider should not have to infer that from: * a company email address; * a senior job title; * access to the PSP dashboard; or * the fact that the person submitted the application. Authority is a fact that may need to be established separately. Stripe's current Connect documentation similarly treats representative authority as a relationship-verification issue and documents specific failures where it cannot establish that an authorizer or account representative has sufficient authority. "Director" can itself require clarification Merchants should also distinguish a formal corporate directorship from a job title containing the word director. A person called: Director of Sales or: Marketing Director may or may not be a statutory or board director of the particular legal entity, depending on the company's structure and jurisdiction.

When a PSP requests director information, the merchant should therefore determine which corporate role the provider means rather than supplying everyone with "Director" in their business-card title. The evidence should answer: Is this person a director of the legal entity under review? not merely: Does this person's job title contain the word director? Why registry data may not finish the check A merchant may reasonably ask: "If our country's company register shows the director, why do you need anything else?" Because a registry lookup can answer only the questions that the registry is capable of answering reliably. A registry could potentially help establish: * that the company exists; * that a particular name appears as a director; * when an appointment was filed; * the registered company details; or * other jurisdiction-specific corporate information. It may not, by itself, establish: * that the provider has verified the natural person's identity; * that the data is current enough for the required purpose; * that the person filling in the application is the same person; * that the person has authority to enter the specific PSP relationship; or * that no discrepancy exists between provider data and the company record. FATF's guidance explicitly recognizes differences in registry reliability across jurisdictions, including situations where registries are passive repositories rather than active verifiers of submitted information.

Conversely, merchants should not assume that registry data is weak everywhere. In the UK, for example, Companies House is now implementing mandatory identity verification for directors and PSCs, materially changing the identity assurance attached to those roles. The correct conclusion is not: Registries cannot verify directors. It is: Understand exactly what the relevant registry has established and what additional fact the payment provider is still trying to verify. How current PSP requirements illustrate the variation There is no defensible global rule that says every PSP verifies every company director in exactly the same way. Current primary-source documentation demonstrates why. Checkout.com Checkout.com's May 2026 merchant-verification guidance states that the stakeholders it may verify depend on company structure and country. Its published UK requirements include: * UBOs; * a control person; * a director; and * an authorized signatory. Its Singapore requirements also list directors, while several other regional rows use different combinations of UBOs, control persons, designated UBOs, authorized signatories, or legal representatives. This is Checkout.com's current provider-specific framework, not a universal legal rule. Stripe

Stripe's current Connect documentation for European relationship verification separately defines UBO and director relationships and describes methods for verifying those relationships using third-party data, official documents, or attestations where available. The exact relationship required depends on entity type and applicable country rules within that documented framework. Again, this is a specific Stripe Connect verification framework. Adyen Adyen's published platform documentation demonstrates a slightly different role model: organizations are associated with owners, controllers, and signatories. The signatory is the person who can legally represent the organization toward Adyen and enter a binding agreement for it. The terminology is not identical across providers. That is precisely why merchants should prepare relationships, not just labels. The four relationships merchants should reconcile Before submitting director information, construct a simple internal role map. Question Record internally Who owns or ultimately controls the entity? UBO / beneficial-ownership analysis Who currently serves as director or equivalent relevant manager? Director / corporate management record Who is completing onboarding? Applicant / operational contact Who can legally act or sign for this relationship? Authorized representative / signatory Then identify where the same person occupies more than one role. This avoids both errors: assuming four different people are required and:

assuming one person automatically satisfies all four roles. Common director-verification mismatches The owners were supplied, but the directors were not What happened: The merchant interpreted "people associated with the company" as an ownership request. Unresolved question: Who occupies the required management role? Merchant response: Identify the directors of the exact legal entity and respond to the director-specific request. The director belongs to the parent company What happened: A group executive has authority at Parent Co, but Merchant Subsidiary is the entity being onboarded. Unresolved question: What is that person's formal relationship with the applicant? Merchant response: Separate parent-company roles from merchant-entity roles and provide the relationship evidence requested. The registry and application disagree What happened: One source shows a different director. Unresolved question: Which record reflects the current position? Merchant response: Establish the effective change date, correct inaccurate information, and provide appropriate current evidence. The director's name differs between records Possible reasons can include: * transliteration; * middle names; * changed legal name; * local-script versus Latin-script rendering; * abbreviation; or * data-entry error. Unresolved question: Do the records refer to the same natural person? Merchant response: Explain the legitimate difference and provide supporting evidence through the secure method requested.

A mismatch should be resolved, not concealed. The applicant is not a director This is not necessarily a problem. Unresolved question: Is the applicant authorized to act for the merchant? Merchant response: Determine what authority evidence the provider accepts for that specific relationship. A former director remains in the application What happened: An old onboarding form or internal company profile was reused. Unresolved question: Who currently manages the legal entity? Merchant response: Update merchant data and supply current evidence rather than trying to support an obsolete declaration. Where director verification creates avoidable launch delay The verification itself may be necessary. The rework often is not. A director check becomes an avoidable onboarding bottleneck when the merchant first has to determine: * which company is actually contracting; * which individuals are directors of that entity; * whether internal records are current; * whether a recent board change has been filed; * whether the signatory is also a director; * who holds authority if the signatory is not a director; or * why names differ among the application, registry, identity evidence, and corporate documents. Those are information-management failures before they are PSP problems. A pre-submission director review Before onboarding, the merchant's compliance, legal, finance, or operations owner should reconcile: Legal entity Use the precise entity applying for payment services. Current directors

Identify the corporate directors relevant to that legal entity—not merely executives across the group. UBOs Maintain the ownership/control analysis separately. Authorized representative Identify who will submit information and who may agree to contractual or provider requirements. Relationship overlaps Mark where one person is director + UBO, director + signatory, or occupies another combination. Registry status Check whether available official information reflects current appointments. Identity consistency Compare the person's legal name and relevant details before submitting them. Recent changes Explain resignations, appointments, restructurings, or pending registry updates when material to the request. The objective is not to send every piece of corporate evidence pre-emptively. It is to ensure that when a provider asks: "Who is this director?" the company already knows how it will answer. Document collection is not director verification One of the most important operational distinctions in KYC and KYB is: information declared → evidence supplied → evidence checked → relationship compared → independent source considered where applicable → discrepancy resolved → verification outcome Sending a passport does not establish a directorship. A registry record does not necessarily establish current identity to the provider's required standard. A directorship does not automatically establish authority for every contract. A signed authorization does not establish beneficial ownership.

Each evidence type answers a different question. What evidence may support director verification? The exact evidence depends on the jurisdiction and provider, but it can help to organize possible evidence by purpose. Evidence category Question it may help answer Merchant application data Who does the merchant declare as a director? Company registry information Is the person recorded in the relevant corporate role? Corporate records What appointment, governance, or management relationship exists? Identity information/document Who is the natural person? Independent electronic data Can declared identity or corporate information be corroborated? Authorization evidence May this person act or sign for the merchant? Updated filing/change evidence Does a recent corporate change explain a mismatch? Do not treat this as a universal document list. Providers and jurisdictions can differ substantially. How to respond when a director check fails A failed or unresolved check should be diagnosed at the level of the fact being tested. Ask: Is the identity unresolved? Check the natural-person data and requested identity evidence. Is the directorship unresolved? Check the legal entity, corporate role, registry record, and appointment evidence. Is the current status unresolved? Check whether a recent appointment or resignation explains the difference. Is authority unresolved? Establish who may represent or bind the company under the provider's accepted process. Is the company relationship unresolved?

Make sure the director evidence relates to the merchant entity being onboarded rather than a parent, affiliate, or similarly named company. Is the discrepancy only a data mismatch? Correct inaccurate information rather than producing unrelated new documentation. This turns: "Director KYC failed" into an operationally useful diagnosis.

Privacy matters because director verification involves personal data Director and representative verification can involve sensitive identity and contact information. Merchants should therefore submit personal evidence only through the provider's authorized process and should avoid distributing identity documents through informal channels unnecessarily.

Collecting more information is not synonymous with better verification. The relevant information should support the actual verification purpose and applicable requirements. FAQ: Director verification in payment onboarding Why does a PSP need director details if it already has the UBOs? Because UBO verification and director verification answer different questions. UBO analysis concerns ultimate ownership or control under the applicable framework. Director verification concerns a relevant corporate management or governance role. FATF's current framework separately addresses beneficial ownership, senior management information, and people acting on behalf of customers. Does every company director have to complete KYC with every PSP? No universal rule should be assumed. Requirements depend on factors including jurisdiction, legal structure, regulated context, provider, and risk assessment. Checkout.com's current requirements illustrate this directly: its published stakeholder-verification matrix includes directors in some regional cases but different combinations of roles in others. Can a director also be a UBO? Yes, a person can occupy both roles if the facts and applicable beneficial-ownership test support it. But directorship itself does not make the person a UBO. FATF's current glossary makes the distinction particularly explicit in its treatment of nominee directors. Can a UBO not be a director?

Yes. Ownership/control and directorship are separate relationships, so the person who ultimately owns or controls an entity need not necessarily occupy a director role. FATF treats beneficial ownership and company-director information separately in its current standards and guidance. Is an authorized signatory the same as a director? Not necessarily. A provider may separately verify the person's identity and authority to act for the business. Adyen's current platform documentation, for example, defines signatories by their authority to legally represent the organization toward Adyen, while Checkout.com's current UK requirements separately list directors and authorized signatories. Why would a provider ask for director evidence if the director appears in a registry? Because the provider may be establishing more than the existence of a name in a registry. It may need to establish identity, current role, or authority, and registry reliability differs by jurisdiction. FATF specifically notes variations in how actively registries check and update company information. What if the company register lists an old director? Do not conceal or work around the inconsistency.

Identify whether the merchant information or the registry information is outdated, establish the effective appointment or resignation, and provide whatever current evidence the relevant provider accepts. Stripe's Connect documentation provides one provider-specific example of director mismatches being treated as relationship-verification issues requiring reconciliation. Does completing director verification mean the merchant is approved? Not necessarily. Director verification can be one component of a broader merchant onboarding and KYB process. Other questions can involve the legal entity, beneficial ownership, business activity, authorized representatives, banking relationship, underwriting, or other applicable requirements. Current provider documentation demonstrates that multiple stakeholder and entity checks can coexist within business verification. The right question is not "Why do you need another person?" The merchant who has already supplied its owners may see a director request as duplicate KYC. Often, it is not. The PSP may already understand who owns the company and still need to establish who manages it, who is officially connected to it, or who has authority to act for it. That leaves merchants with a much better question than: "Why are you asking for the director when you already have the UBO?" Ask: "Which fact about this person's role is still unresolved: identity, current directorship, management relationship, or authority to represent the company?"

Once that question is clear, the evidence becomes easier to target. Ownership, management, and representation are connected. They are not interchangeable. Disclaimer: This article provides general information and does not constitute legal, regulatory, compliance, tax, accounting, or financial advice. KYC and KYB requirements vary by jurisdiction, regulated activity, provider, financial institution, merchant structure, and risk profile. Merchants should verify current requirements with qualified advisers, relevant authorities, and their payment providers or acquirers. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

A. Brief interpretation — not article copy Element Interpretation Article-owned question Why might a payment provider need to verify directors separately after the merchant has already identified its owners? Verification subject The natural person who is a director of, manages, or has relevant representation authority for the merchant legal entity Verification objective Establish the person's identity, current relationship to the company, and—where relevant—the authority by which that person manages or represents it Key distinction Ownership answers who ultimately owns or controls the business; director verification addresses who occupies a management/governance role; authorization addresses who may act for the merchant Editorial position Directors are not substitute UBOs, and UBOs are not substitute directors Unique evidence anchor A person can be a genuine company director while owning little or none of the company's equity Final merchant decision Determine which person's management or representation relationship must be established for the specific merchant entity, then make the role, identity, and authority evidence internally consistent

B. PUBLICATION-READY ARTICLE C. ORIGINAL ARTICLE ASSET — EDITORIAL / DESIGN HANDOFF, NOT ARTICLE COPY Director Verification Map The article contains the framework in prose; for design, I would turn it into this seven-stage flow: 1. Director record Merchant declares the person and role. ↓ 2. Registry / company evidence Does independent or corporate evidence support the relationship? ↓ 3. Identity Is the natural person who they claim to be? ↓ 4. Current role Is the appointment current for the exact merchant legal entity? ↓ 5. Authority / signatory relationship Is this person also acting for or binding the company? If not, who is? ↓ 6. Consistency check Application ↔ registry ↔ identity ↔ legal entity ↔ authorization. ↓ 7. Mismatch resolution Correct inaccurate data, explain legitimate changes, provide targeted evidence, confirm what remains unresolved. A useful design treatment would show ownership verification running beside this flow rather than inside it. That visually reinforces the article's differentiating argument: UBO identification and director verification are related KYB workstreams, not synonyms.

D. SEO PACKAGE — NOT ARTICLE COPY SEO title: Director Verification: Why PSPs Verify Directors Separately From Owners H1: Director Verification: Why Payment Providers Check Company Directors Separately From Owners Meta description: Learn why payment providers verify company directors separately from UBOs, how director identity and authority checks work, and what mismatches can delay merchant onboarding. URL slug: /kyc-kyb/director-verification/ Primary keyword: director verification Secondary keywords: director KYC, company director verification, director identity verification, director verification KYB, business director KYC, authorized director verification, merchant director verification

Suggested excerpt: Director verification is not duplicate beneficial-owner verification. Payment providers may need to establish who currently manages or represents a merchant legal entity even when that person owns no meaningful shares. This guide explains the differences among directors, UBOs, and authorized representatives—and how merchants can prevent role and identity mismatches from slowing onboarding. Suggested internal links Ultimate Beneficial Owner Requirements should be linked from the director-versus-UBO discussion rather than re-explaining ownership tests here. KYC Explained belongs after the section separating a person's identity from their company relationship. Corporate Structure Verification should be linked from parent-company/subsidiary director mismatches. KYB Explained should be linked where director verification is placed within the broader business-verification process. I would use Beneficial Ownership Verification only once if useful; otherwise UBO Requirements is the stronger adjacent link because excessive beneficial-ownership content risks pulling this article out of its owned territory. Structured-data recommendation Use Article schema as the primary structured data. Add FAQPage only if the published implementation exposes the FAQ visibly and the site's current structured-data policy supports it. Do not add factual claims to schema that are absent from the article. Supporting visual Director Verification Map: From Company Record to Verified Authority

The visual should use three clearly separated concepts at its center: OWNERSHIP — Who ultimately owns/controls? MANAGEMENT — Who is the director? REPRESENTATION — Who may act for the company? Then run the director path through: Director record → registry/company evidence → identity → current role → authority relationship → consistency → resolution Recommended image alt text “Director Verification Map showing how a payment provider can compare a company director record, registry evidence, identity, current role, signing authority, and consistency while keeping director, UBO, and authorized representative roles separate.”

E. SOURCE AND VERIFICATION PLAN — NOT ARTICLE COPY Current primary sources used FATF Recommendations — updated June 2026. The strongest conceptual authority for separating the customer/legal entity, beneficial owner, senior management, and a person acting on behalf of the customer. FATF expressly requires authority and identity to be established for a person acting on the customer's behalf under its Recommendation 10 framework. FATF Guidance on Beneficial Ownership of Legal Persons. Particularly useful for establishing that director information belongs to basic company information while also warning that registry quality and verification practices vary internationally. Companies House — current 2026 guidance. Useful only as a clearly labeled UK example. Mandatory identity verification began being phased in from November 18, 2025 for directors and PSCs, reinforcing the conceptual separation between the people running companies and ownership/control roles. Checkout.com — Verify Individuals, May 18, 2026. Particularly strong provider evidence because it publishes role requirements by region and shows directors, UBOs, control persons, authorized signatories, and legal representatives as distinct stakeholder categories.

Stripe Connect — relationship verification. Useful for current evidence that director relationships can be independently verified, that official documentation can form part of the process, and that missing/mismatched director records create distinct relationship-verification issues. Adyen — platform verification. Useful for the ownership-versus-control-versus-signatory distinction. It should not be presented as a generic "director verification" standard because Adyen's cited framework uses owners, controllers, and signatories as its defined categories.

Claims to reverify immediately before publication

Do not convert any cited provider's role definition, UBO threshold, document list, or geographic rule into an industry-wide requirement. Jurisdiction-specific checks The article deliberately avoids publishing a global UBO percentage or universal director-KYC rule. The Companies House material must remain explicitly labeled United Kingdom. Any future addition stating that directors have particular legal powers, duties, identification requirements, or representation authority in a specific country should be checked against that country's current corporate and AML/CFT framework. Any statement about whether a director can individually bind a company should likewise be jurisdiction- and company-specific; the published article appropriately avoids assuming that every director automatically has unrestricted signing authority. Provider-policy checks Checkout.com, Stripe, and Adyen examples should remain identified by provider and product/context. In particular: * Checkout.com's cited stakeholder table is its current merchant-verification guidance. * Stripe material relates to its Connect verification framework and described European requirements. * Adyen material cited is platform-verification documentation. * None should be described as the required process of every acquirer or PSP.

* which merchant structures require director verification; * whether all directors or selected directors are in scope; * how requirements vary by merchant/entity jurisdiction; * which identity data or evidence are accepted;

* how director changes or registry mismatches are handled; * when an authorized representative must separately establish authority;

F. HUMAN REVIEW RECOMMENDATION — NOT ARTICLE COPY Recommended author profile: Merchant onboarding or KYC/KYB specialist with hands-on understanding of business-person relationship verification. Primary compliance reviewer: AML/KYB specialist who can confirm the distinctions among director, beneficial owner, controller, senior managing official, and authorized representative. Legal reviewer: Payments/corporate counsel, particularly to review any future language about directors' legal authority or jurisdiction-specific corporate roles. Operations reviewer: Merchant onboarding operations lead who can validate whether the mismatch-resolution workflow reflects real document-request patterns. Regional specialist: Only necessary where the article is localized or expanded with country-specific director requirements.

Recommended publication field: Include a visible Last reviewed date because provider role matrices, registry identity rules, and KYC/KYB procedures are changeable. Because these sources are particularly time-sensitive, a quarterly verification pass would be useful for the KYC/KYB cluster as well. Recheck KYC/KYB sources quarterly