Identity Verification Service

To help fulfill banking regulations regarding customer onboarding, Galileo offers the Identity Verification Service (IVS) to automate and streamline how you verify your customers—both individuals (KYC) and businesses (KYB). IVS provides a standalone ID verification service to satisfy AML and CIP requirements. You can implement IVS as a standalone solution invoked prior to account creation or as an automated process integrated directly into the Create Account workflow.

Unlike Galileo's Legacy CIP solution, IVS forgoes manual document handling in favor of a scalable, API-driven framework and introduces support for business verification and persistent lifecycle monitoring.

IVS provides the tools to help you meet CIP, customer due diligence (CDD), and enhanced due diligence (EDD) requirements.

Features

IVS is a white-labeled, end-to-end service that includes:

• A suite of APIs to submit individual and business applications for ID verification.
• Configurable verification policies based on your specific risk appetite.
• Webhook notifications to instantly alert you of changes to a customer's application or risk status.
• Secure data storage to meet reporting and record-keeping requirements.
• Scalable automation and integration with our operational fraud team to manage manual reviews and document requests.

Benefits

• Regulatory compliance — Meet requirements for KYC, KYB, and AML using a robust toolset.
• Efficient onboarding — Approve legitimate customers quickly, which can lead to more deposits and interchange revenue.
• Fraud prevention — Safeguard your business by screening and monitoring for high-risk entities, sanctioned individuals, and PEPs through multiple sources.
• Comprehensive oversight — Access a comprehensive solution for identity verification needs, from initial onboarding to ongoing monitoring.

Core components

IVS forms the foundation for a multi-layered risk strategy consisting of automated services to assess risk and meet regulatory requirements.

• CIP – PII verification — Requires you to collect specific data points to form a reasonable belief regarding a customer's true identity via API submission.
• Document verification — When PII checks are insufficient, IVS provides a link to a site where customers can capture images of their documents through a secure process—using document and selfie capture rather than PDF uploads—to detect fake documents or deepfakes.
  • Accepted document types: Driver's license, passport, and local identity cards.
• Sanction screening and continuous monitoring — IVS introduces continuous lifecycle monitoring, frequently re-screening existing customers for changes in their risk profiles against various U.S. government lists.

Integrating with IVS

Choose how to integrate IVS based on your desired level of control over the customer experience.

Standalone integration

Integrate directly with IVS endpoints to determine when to invoke IVS as part of your customer onboarding flow. The workflow consists of:

1. Call Verify Customer — Submit the customer's PII for automated validation and screening.
2. Receive response — If the result is In Progress, present the provided URL to the customer for capturing document images.
3. Listen for events — Use the data provided in IVS events to track the journey.
4. Finalize with Create Account — Once you receive a Pass result, you call the Create Account endpoint to create the customer's financial record. Galileo automatically correlates the verification result with the new account record.

Automated integration

Galileo can invoke IVS during the account-creation process when you call Create Account. The workflow is:

1. Call Create Account — Send the required PII in the account creation payload.
2. Internal invocation — Galileo automatically invokes IVS before creating the record.
3. Conditional success — If IVS returns a Pass, the account is created successfully. If IVS returns In Progress or Fail, the response returns a specific status (e.g., Pending) for your follow-up action.

Use cases

• Onboarding a business account — Use the IVS endpoints to submit the business's information and the PII of its beneficial owners. The service automatically verifies that the business exists and screens all involved individuals against sanctions and PEP lists. It returns a clear Pass decision, giving you the risk-level approval to proceed with creating their account.
• Resolving an application requiring manual review — The API response indicates In Progress and provides a secure URL. You can present this link to the applicant, who can then upload their government ID or other required documents directly into a secure portal for verification, streamlining the exception-handling process.

Technical reference

Use the following reference to map your customer data and interpret system decisions.

Required data points

At minimum, your program must collect the following information from applicants (currently supporting U.S. only):

• For individuals (KYC):
  • Full legal name
  • Date of birth
  • Residential address (P.O. boxes are not permitted)
  • Government-issued identification number (such as an SSN, ITIN, or SIN)
• For businesses (KYB):
  • Legal name
  • Legal structure (e.g., LLC, S Corp)
  • Registered address
  • Date of incorporation and tax ID
  • PII for all ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs)

Verification outcomes

IVS distinguishes between In Progress (customer action required) and Referral (manual review), which the legacy systems conflates.

Handling application denials

If an identity verification fails or a manual review results in a rejection, use the Close Application or Close Customer Account endpoints to terminate the request.

• For pending applications — Use Close Application with a reasonID to finalize the closure:
  • 61 — Applicant requested
  • 62 — Abandoned
  • 63 — Terminated by provider
• For manual reviews — If an application was referred for manual review and your team determines it should be denied, use Close Application to provide the final Decline decision.
• For existing customer accounts — If the verification failure involves an existing account record rather than a new application, use Close Customer Account to terminate the account and associated processes.

API endpoints

Depending on your chosen integration strategy, you can use these endpoints to manage the identity verification process. Galileo will tell you which endpoints your program requires based on your unique use case.

• Verify Customer — Performs identity verification for individuals and businesses by validating personal details, addresses, and identification documents.
• Get Application Status — Retrieves the current status of a specific verification application (e.g., ACTIVE, CLOSED, or PENDING).
• Get Customer Status — Retrieves the overall verification status and decision for a customer to help you track the customer's risk profile throughout the onboarding process.
• Get Verification Documents — Retrieves the documentation associated with a documentation verification request.
• Close Application — Terminates a pending application that is no longer needed or has been denied.
• Close Customer Account — Closes an existing customer account and stops further verification activities.
• Create Account — Finalizes the onboarding process. Even after a standalone Pass result, you must call this endpoint to onboard the customer.

Events API

Galileo uses webhooks to send you asynchronous updates about a customer's verification journey:

Implementation and testing

These testing procedures and configuration options allow you to validate your integration and define your program's specific risk thresholds.

CV environment

Galileo can enable a CV environment for you to test the end-to-end flow prior to going to Production. Consult with your Galileo representative to identify requirements and specific use cases for testing.

Galileo setup

Contact Galileo to configure your internal verification routing and set your product parameters, which control your specific compliance thresholds: