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Identifying who ultimately owns and controls a company is a critical part of business verification. Didit automatically extracts the ownership structure from company registries and provides tools to verify each beneficial owner.

Beneficial owners (UBOs)

A Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) is a natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity. Didit identifies UBOs from registry data and presents them for review.

Extracted data per UBO

FieldDescription
NameFull name of the beneficial owner
Date of birthWhere available from the registry
NationalityCountry of nationality
Entity typeperson or company (for corporate shareholders)
RolesShareholder, director, or both
Ownership sharesMinimum and maximum ownership percentage range
Voting sharesMinimum and maximum voting rights percentage range
Appointment dateDate the person was added as a beneficial owner
Active statusWhether the person is currently an active UBO

Corporate shareholders

When a shareholder is another company rather than a natural person, Didit records:
  • Company name and registration number
  • The ownership percentage held
  • Country of incorporation
This allows analysts to trace ownership chains through multiple corporate layers to identify the ultimate natural persons who control the entity.

Ownership thresholds

Most jurisdictions define UBOs as individuals who own or control 25% or more of a company. However, thresholds vary:
JurisdictionTypical UBO threshold
EU (AMLD)25% ownership or control
UK25% shares or voting rights
USA (CTA)25% ownership or substantial control
Singapore25% shares or voting power
Your workflow can be configured to flag or review cases where no UBO meets the regulatory threshold.

KYC linking

Each identified beneficial owner can be linked to a KYC verification session for individual identity verification. When linked:
  • The person’s identity is verified through the standard KYC flow (ID document, liveness, face match)
  • AML screening results from the KYC session are associated with the UBO record
  • The business session status reflects the combined results of all linked KYC sessions
This ensures that not only is the company verified, but the individuals behind it are also verified to the same standard.

AML screening

Every identified UBO is automatically screened against global AML watchlists. See Business AML screening for details on how company and person-level AML screening works together.