KYC: what a buyer checks before your first cargo moves

Typically a recent commercial register extract, ownership down to the ultimate beneficial owners, identification of directors and authorised signatories, valid tax and VAT identifiers matching the invoicing entity, bank details confirmed through the bank, and your certification with the annex that names the products. For waste streams add collection and transport permits, and for cross-border movements the notification paperwork. Larger volumes often bring a request for recent accounts or a credit reference.

Weeks rather than days, and longer if anything has to be chased. The review itself is not slow; the round trips are. Every mismatch between the entity on the offer, the certificate and the invoice costs another exchange, and a half-completed form sitting in somebody's inbox costs the most of all.

That is the buyer's decision, not yours. Some will accept a lighter check for a first parcel and complete the full file afterwards; others will not move at all. It is worth asking rather than assuming, and worth asking early, because the window on a parcel is usually shorter than the onboarding.

Because sanctions rules and their own policy apply to the people behind a company, not only to its name. A company register shows the immediate shareholder; the question is who ultimately owns and controls it, which for a holding structure means walking up the chain until you reach people.

It does not transfer, every counterparty runs its own, but it is a real reference. Passing a serious file review at a European major says something, and counterparties read it that way. Say so in a first email; smaller suppliers consistently undersell this.

Because an emailed letterhead with account details is exactly what invoice fraud looks like, and buyers have been burned. Expect a confirmation issued by the bank itself or a verification call to a number the buyer looks up independently. It is not a comment on you.

Yes, and it is the single most common reason a file stalls. It is usually explainable, a group structure, a trading entity alongside a production entity, but it has to be explained, in writing, with the relationship documented. Raise it yourself before the compliance desk finds it.

No, and nobody outside that buyer can. Their compliance desk decides and it decides independently of the commercial conversation. What we do is tell you what they will ask before they ask it, flag the entity and scope mismatches that stall files, and keep the process moving when it goes quiet.

Say so, with the volume and the counterparties that have already onboarded you. Size is not the test; the file is. Plenty of small companies move serious tonnage and clear onboarding at majors, and a compliance desk is looking at whether your documents hold together, not at your headcount.

No. They answer different questions. Certification says the material and the chain meet a scheme's requirements; onboarding says the buyer knows who you are and may lawfully trade with you. You need both, and a certificate whose scope does not cover the product will fail the second check even though it passed the first.