Buyer KYC

Every buyer who pays through Caratuva goes through identity verification once. After that, they pay future invoices — from any Caratuva seller — in seconds. This page explains what the buyer experiences, what determines individual vs. business KYC, and how a seller can support a buyer who’s stuck.

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Why KYC is mandatory

Cross-border payment infrastructure is regulated. Anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing, and sanctions-screening rules require us to know who is paying us before we move money on their behalf. Caratuva does not offer a skip-KYC path for any amount, any country, or any payment surface — including API-created invoices. This is a deliberate, non-negotiable design. The trade-off is asymmetric: a few minutes of buyer friction on first payment, then a frictionless experience on every subsequent payment.

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Individual vs. business KYC

The KYC flow forks based on whether the buyer is paying as a person or on behalf of a company.

• Individual — sole proprietors, freelancers, or anyone paying with personal funds.
• Business — companies. Triggered when the invoice’s buyer name looks like a legal entity, or when the buyer self-identifies as a business on the first KYC step.

The buyer can switch between the two at the start of the flow.

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Individual KYC

For an individual buyer, we collect: Most individual KYC submissions clear within minutes.

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Business KYC

For a business buyer, we collect everything in individual KYC for the signing officer, plus: Business KYC takes longer than individual — typically a few hours, sometimes up to a business day for complex ownership structures.

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What the buyer experiences

The page walks the buyer through the steps one at a time, with progress saved between steps. They can:

• Pause and resume — sessions are saved server-side and resume on the next sign-in.
• Re-take photos directly in the browser if the first attempt is blurry.
• Skip back to fix a mistake before submitting.

Each document upload uses a one-time secure URL. Files are encrypted in transit and at rest, and accessible only to authorized compliance reviewers.

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Status flow

The buyer (and you, on the dashboard) see one of: You see the same status on the invoice detail page. Webhooks fire only on the terminal KYC outcomes — payment_intent.buyer_kyc_approved / payment_intent.buyer_kyc_rejected (and the invoice.buyer_kyc_* equivalents) — not on the intermediate pending / verifying transitions.

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Reuse across sellers

KYC is per-buyer, not per-invoice or per-seller. Once a buyer has cleared KYC for any Caratuva seller, they reuse it for every subsequent payment, with any seller. They do not re-upload documents. They do not re-take selfies. They click pay. This is the platform effect — every additional buyer who clears KYC reduces friction for the whole network.

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When a buyer asks “why is this needed?”

A short answer that works:

“Caratuva is regulated cross-border payment infrastructure. We’re required to verify everyone who pays through the platform. This is a one-time process — you’ll never have to do it again, with us or any other seller using Caratuva.”

Most professional buyers are familiar with the requirement; many of their banks ask for the same documents. The selfie is the only step that’s distinctive, and it exists because document-only KYC is straightforwardly forgeable.

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When a buyer can’t clear KYC

If KYC fails or the buyer can’t complete it (lost ID, jurisdictional issue, etc.), the invoice transitions to buyer_kyc_rejected and you’ll see the reason on the dashboard. Common scenarios:

• Sanctioned jurisdiction — we cannot onboard buyers in countries under comprehensive sanctions.
• Politically exposed person — flagged for enhanced due diligence; we may onboard, may not.
• Document quality — phone photos work, but the document must be in focus, well-lit, and uncropped. Most rejections at this stage are recoverable: contact support and the buyer can re-submit.

If a specific buyer is stuck, message support from the dashboard with the buyer’s email. We’ll surface what’s missing without putting you in the middle.

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What buyers see vs. what sellers see

This separation is deliberate — sellers shouldn’t have access to their buyers’ private documents, and Caratuva enforces that at the data layer.