UBO
A UBO, Ultimate Beneficial Owner, is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity, directly or through a chain of other entities, even when that person’s name appears on no public register.
KYB checks a business itself, its registration, its authorised representatives, but establishing who ultimately stands behind it is a separate and often harder step: ownership can run through several holding companies or trusts before it reaches a person. A UBO credential lets that chain be proven once, by the register or notary that established it, and then presented instantly to every counterparty that needs it afterwards, instead of each one re-tracing the ownership structure from scratch. Regulators typically define a UBO threshold, commonly a stake of twenty-five percent or more, or control exercised through other means such as voting rights or the ability to appoint management, so establishing UBO status is not always a simple ownership-percentage lookup. AML rules require regulated entities, banks, notaries, and payment providers among them, to identify and record the UBO behind every corporate customer before onboarding it, which is why UBO registers exist in most EU member states today. A verifiable UBO credential draws on the same Authentic Sources those registers already hold, so a bank's KYB process can confirm the underlying ownership structure without asking the customer to supply notarised paperwork that the register has already established. Because ownership structures change, an acquisition, a share transfer, a new trust arrangement, a UBO credential is only as reliable as how recently it was issued or last confirmed against the register behind it.
Is a UBO the same as a company's legal owner listed in the trade register?
Not necessarily. A trade register typically lists direct shareholders or directors, which can be another company rather than a person. A UBO is specifically the natural person at the end of that ownership chain, found by tracing through any intermediate entities. A UBO register exists precisely because that person often does not appear directly in the trade register.