Verify Japanese and foreign corporate customers, trace ownership through to the natural person in control, and screen the entity and its owners in one record.
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What this covers
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Beneficial ownership transparency was one of the areas FATF rated weak in Japan's 2021 mutual evaluation, and the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds asks firms to reach the natural person behind a corporate customer. For a group with parents and holding companies outside Japan, that means following ownership across borders and keeping the evidence for each layer, not recording a parent company and stopping.
Beneficial owner verification in JapanJapanese law requires beneficial ownership to be traced through to the natural person who controls the legal person, not stopped at the first corporate shareholder. Ownership structures are mapped layer by layer until they reach a person.
Where an employee acts for a company, an employee ID card is not accepted as proof of authority; a letter of attorney or a certificate of registered matters naming them is. The document relied on is kept with the file.
The company, its beneficial owners and its officers are screened against sanctions, PEP and adverse media data in the same record, because a foreign PEP controlling a company makes that company's transactions high risk.
For high-risk transactions, Japanese law expects a shareholder register or securities report to confirm beneficial ownership rather than a declaration alone. Workflows can require that evidence before a case closes.
Registration status, structure and screening results feed the entity's risk rating, so the level of review follows the risk rather than a single standard check.
ISO/IEC 27001:2022Information security management, independently audited.
ISO/IEC 27701:2019Privacy information management, extending ISO 27001.
GDPRPersonal data handled to EU standards, wherever you operate.
DORAOperational resilience for EU financial entities and their vendors.To the natural person who controls the legal person. Article 4 of the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds does not allow the check to stop at the first corporate shareholder.
A letter of attorney, or a certificate of registered matters naming them as a representative officer. An employee ID card on its own is not accepted as proof of authority.
Registry coverage varies by country and data source. Talk to our team about the Japanese and cross-border registry data your onboarding needs, and we will confirm what is available for your use case.
The product is the same. This page covers how it applies to corporate customers in Japan: tracing beneficial owners under Japanese law, evidencing authority to act, and the stricter checks for high-risk transactions. The global page describes the product for every market.
A short walkthrough of screening, verification and ongoing monitoring in one platform, set to the thresholds and jurisdictions your programme actually uses.
