Outsourced: Onboard a limited company

Under our outsourcing model, Griffin does not perform independent third-party verification of the data you submit. We define the information required to meet account opening and regulatory reporting obligations, and when data is submitted, we validate that the required fields are present and screen the customer against our appetite criteria — including industry, jurisdiction, and risk profile.

To check the different types of entities you can onboard using Outsourced, see Entities we onboard.

Outsourced onboarding is for firms which Griffin has a pre-existing agreement with to outsource the onboarding processes to. If you don't have this agreement in place, this onboarding guide does not apply to you.

caution

Only users with the compliance role can create and submit Outsourced applications.

Process overview

There are four steps to onboarding a limited company via Outsourced:

Capture the customer information
Create the legal persons
Run the verification
View the verification outcome and onboarding decision

1. Capture the customer information

Information	Claim	Required
Company name	`uk-company-register`	✓
Company registration number	`uk-company-register`	✓
Corporation type	`uk-company-register`	✓
Date of incorporation	`uk-company-register`	✓
Company registered address	`uk-company-register`	✓
Country code	`uk-company-register`	✓
Company trading address	`trading-address`	✓
Industry code (SIC)	`sic-codes`	✓
Business size	`business-size`	✓
Tax residency/ies	`tax-residencies`	✓
Tax identifier number/s	`tax-identification-numbers-by-country`	✓
Risk rating	`external-risk-rating`	✓
Number of employees	`number-of-employees`	Optional
Balance sheet size	`balance-sheet-size`	Optional
Estimated annual turnover	`annual-turnover`	Optional

Director and PSC information

For each director and person with significant control (PSC), you'll need:

Information	Claim	Required
Full name (given name)	`individual-identity`	✓
Middle name	`individual-identity`	Optional
Full name (surname)	`individual-identity`	✓
Date of birth	`individual-identity`	✓
Residential address	`individual-residence`	✓
US citizen confirmation	`us-citizen`	✓
Tax residency/ies	`tax-residencies`	✓
Tax identifier number/s	`tax-identification-numbers-by-country`	✓

2. Create the legal persons

In the API, your customer is represented as a legal person, and each of the data points above represent one claim about them. Create a corporation legal person to represent the company, then add claims about it and any directors/PSCs.

Create the company legal person

curl "https://api.griffin.com/v0/organizations/${ORGANIZATION_ID}/legal-persons" \
  -H "Authorization: GriffinAPIKey $GRIFFIN_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d \
'{
  "display-name": "Money Technology Ltd",
  "legal-person-type": "corporation",
  "claims": [
    {
      "claim-type": "uk-company-register",
      "entity-name": "Money Technology Ltd",
      "corporation-type": "private-limited-company",
      "entity-registration-number": "91824539",
      "date-of-incorporation": "2017-06-01",
      "building-number": "184",
      "city": "London",
      "street-name": "Argyle Street",
      "postal-code": "EC2V 9AN",
      "country-code": "GB",
      "email-address": "hello@moneytech.com",
      "telephone-number": "+442012345678"
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "trading-address",
      "building-name": "Tower A",
      "building-number": "12",
      "street-name": "High Street",
      "city": "London",
      "postal-code": "TE1 2ST",
      "country-code": "GB"
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "sic-codes",
      "sic-codes": ["01110"]
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "business-size",
      "business-size": "small"
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "tax-residencies",
      "tax-residencies": ["GB", "US"]
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "tax-identification-numbers-by-country",
      "tins-by-country": {
        "GB": ["12345-6789"],
        "US": ["123-45-6789"]
      }
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "external-risk-rating",
      "external-risk-rating": "low-risk"
    }
  ]
}'

A successful response will display the URL for the newly created legal person (e.g. /v0/legal-persons/lp.njk7tIWvQJGPEFIdDmS9yQ) in the response's Location header and in the response body. Save this URL for the next step.

Create director and PSC legal persons

For each director and PSC, create an individual legal person and link them to the company:

curl "https://api.griffin.com/v0/organizations/${ORGANIZATION_ID}/legal-persons" \
  -H "Authorization: GriffinAPIKey $GRIFFIN_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d \
'{
  "display-name": "JOHNSON, Talia",
  "legal-person-type": "individual",
  "claims": [
    {
      "claim-type": "individual-identity",
      "given-name": "Talia",
      "surname": "Johnson",
      "date-of-birth": "1985-03-15"
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "individual-residence",
      "building-number": "19",
      "street-name": "Example Street",
      "city": "Test Town",
      "postal-code": "TE1 2ST",
      "country-code": "GB"
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "us-citizen",
      "us-citizen?": false
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "tax-residencies",
      "tax-residencies": ["GB"]
    },
    {
      "claim-type": "tax-identification-numbers-by-country",
      "tins-by-country": {
        "GB": ["AB123456C"]
      }
    }
  ]
}'

info

In these examples, you create the legal person and their claims in one go, but you can also create a legal person first and then add claims individually. For more detail on claims, see the API reference.

3. Run the verification

Retrieve your workflows

If you're onboarding a customer for the first time, you will need to retrieve your workflows in order to submit the verification. Retrieve and cache your workflow URLs.

Submit the verification

Submit the corporation legal person for verification:

curl 'https://api.griffin.com/v0/legal-persons/lp.njk7tIWvQJGPEFIdDmS9yQ/verifications' \
  -H "Authorization: GriffinAPIKey $GRIFFIN_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"workflow-url": "/v0/workflows/wf.Ul-1r4gRWfOFxHJsHWghcA"}'

A successful response will look like this. Grab the verification-url for monitoring later.

{
  "created-at": "2024-02-10T10:47:51.959Z",
  "display-name": "Money Technology Ltd",
  "legal-person-type": "corporation",
  "legal-person-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.njk7tIWvQJGPEFIdDmS9yQ",
  "updated-at": "2024-02-10T10:47:51.959Z",
  "verification-status": "pending",
  "verification-url": "/v0/verifications/vn.BhpS_dCqFKRYXa8d457fgA",
  "workflow-url": "/v0/workflows/wf.Ul-1r4gRWfOFxHJsHWghcA"
}

4. View the verification outcome and onboarding decision

Verification status

The verification has successfully completed when verification-status reaches checks-complete. You can track this by:

Polling the verification-url
Listening for verification-updated webhook events

Example response:

{
  "created-at": "2024-02-11T10:47:51.959Z",
  "display-name": "Money Technology Ltd",
  "legal-person-type": "corporation",
  "legal-person-url": "/v0/legal-persons/lp.njk7tIWvQJGPEFIdDmS9yQ",
  "external-risk-rating": "low-risk",
  "updated-at": "2022-08-15T10:48:03.215Z",
  "verification-status": "checks-complete",
  "verification-url": "/v0/verifications/vn.BhpS_dCqFKRYXa8d457fgA",
  "workflow-url": "/v0/workflows/wf.Ul-1r4gRWfOFxHJsHWghcA"
}

Verification statuses explained

Status	Description
`pending`	Verification has been created but processing has not yet begun
`in-progress`	Verification checks are actively being performed
`failed`	An internal system error has occurred during verification
`checks-declined`	Verification was terminated early due to failing one or more workflow checks
`checks-complete`	Verification has successfully completed all required checks

Decision process

After reaching checks-complete, the system will either:

Generate an automated decision
Refer the application for manual review (followed by a manual decision)

Monitor decisions by:

Polling the legal-person-decisions-url endpoint
Listening for decision-created webhook events

View on the legal person

Both the verification status and the decisions can be seen in context on the legal person entity.

curl 'https://api.griffin.com/v0/legal-persons/lp.njk7tIWvQJGPEFIdDmS9yQ' -H "Authorization: GriffinAPIKey $GRIFFIN_API_KEY"

The response will include application-status and also the latest-decision when one exists:

{
  "latest-decision": {
    "verification-url": "/v0/verifications/vn.BhpS_dCqFKRYXa8d457fgA",
    "decision-outcome": "accepted",
    "decision-maker": "user",
    "decision-notes": "No red flags here",
    "decision-user-url": "/v0/users/ur.ICAgICAgICAgdXNlci1pZA",
    "created-at": "2024-08-11T10:47:51.959Z"
  },
  "display-name": "Money Technology Ltd",
  "application-status": "accepted",
  "status-changed-at": "2024-02-11T10:47:51.959Z",
  "created-at": "2024-02-10T10:47:51.959Z"
}

Once you have an accepted decision, you're good to go 🎉

What's next?

Open an account! See Types of bank accounts to get started.

Process overview​

1. Capture the customer information​

Company information​

Director and PSC information​

2. Create the legal persons​

Create the company legal person​

Create director and PSC legal persons​

3. Run the verification​

Retrieve your workflows​

Submit the verification​

4. View the verification outcome and onboarding decision​

Verification status​

Verification statuses explained​

Decision process​

View on the legal person​

What's next?​