What KYC Checks Does a UK Card Machine Acquirer Do?

UK card machine acquirers run six KYC checks at application: photo ID verification (passport or driving licence), proof of address verification (utility bill or bank statement under 90 days), Companies House registration check (for limited companies), sanctions and PEP (politically exposed person) screening, director credit check (Experian, Equifax or TransUnion), and the MATCH list lookup (Mastercard's industry shared file for terminated merchants). Clean documents clear in hours, anomalies trigger 1 to 3 days of manual review.

What this means for your business

KYC (Know Your Customer) is regulatory. Set by the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and the Payment Services Regulations 2017. Every acquirer authorised in the UK must run these checks, the variation between acquirers is in speed and tolerance, not in scope. Skipping or shortcutting KYC exposes the acquirer to FCA enforcement, so the checks are non-negotiable.

Photo ID verification is usually digital. The applicant uploads a passport or driving licence photo, the system runs OCR on the document and matches face features against a selfie. Address verification compares the submitted proof of address (utility bill, bank statement, council tax) against credit bureau records. Mismatches (different spelling, abbreviated address, postcode variation) trigger a manual review. Companies House verification confirms the limited company exists and the applicant is a listed officer.

Sanctions and PEP screening checks the applicant name against UK and international sanctions lists (HM Treasury OFSI, US OFAC, EU sanctions) and PEP databases. False positives on common names are routine and trigger 1 to 3 days of manual clearance. Credit check looks at the director's personal credit file for CCJ, default, bankruptcy or IVA markers. MATCH list lookup checks whether the applicant or company has been listed by another acquirer for fraud or excessive chargebacks in the past five years.

Key points

Six standard KYC checks: ID, address, Companies House, sanctions, credit, MATCH list
KYC is FCA-regulated under Money Laundering Regulations 2017
Clean matching documents clear in hours, anomalies trigger 1 to 3 days manual review
Sanctions screening uses HM Treasury OFSI, US OFAC and EU lists
MATCH list (Mastercard) lookup is the industry shared file for terminated merchants
Credit check covers CCJ, default, bankruptcy and IVA markers
PEP screening flags politically exposed persons and their close family members

Common pitfalls

Submitting a 91-day-old proof of address, the cutoff is strict not approximate
Address mismatch between the application and the bank account, this triggers manual review
Common name triggering a sanctions false positive, this is routine and clears in 1 to 3 days
Forgetting to add beneficial owners with 25 per cent or more shareholding, missing owners is a refusal trigger

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