Overview

Introduction

An individual customer is an end-user who holds the balance. In a corporate travel-and-expense (T&E) use case, this would be a staff member who receives a T&E card. In a consumer-funded use case, this would be a retail end-customer who has an account. Depending on the nature of the product or program, the know-your-customer (KYC) and the onboarding process differ. Work with your Nium representative to determine the right approach.

KYC overview

The Unified Add Customer API is used for adding individual customers in the following flow.

An overview flowchart of the KYC process

Region-specific KYC offerings

NIUM supports automated KYC for most of the regions.

Regulatory region	KYC offerings	Description
AU	`E_KYC` `MANUAL_KYC`	Automated KYC by the Australian eKYC vendor. Requires manual submission of documents and review by Nium compliance.
EU	`E_DOC_VERIFY`	Automated document verification by eDocument verification vendor.
SG	`E_KYC` `E_DOC_VERIFY` `MANUAL_KYC`	Automated KYC for Singapore residents by eKYC vendor. Automated document verification by an eDocument verification vendor. Requires manual submission of documents and review by Nium compliance.
UK	`E_DOC_VERIFY`	Automated document verification by an eDocument verification vendor.
US	`E_KYC`	Automated KYC for US nationals by eKYC vendor.

Customer onboarding process

The following are the steps of the Nium customer onboarding process:

Customer account creation
Customer compliance check
Compliance score and status change flow
Request for information (RFI) flow

1. Customer account creation

You can create the customer account by providing customer details through the Unified Add Customer API. The customer details include the customer’s personal, contact, and KYC details. Some of the details are optional depending on the defined KYC option.

Once you create the customer account, the compliance process begins automatically.

2. Customer compliance checks

The customer compliance check involves customer verification, screening, and the KYC process.

Step	Description
Screening	Checks whether the customer is part of any of the regulatory blacklists and if Nium can legally do business with the customer.
KYC	Verifies whether the customer details are accurate. It includes authenticating the customer's identity and address using proof of identity (PoI) and proof of address (PoA).

3. Compliance state transition flow

The following table describes the state transitions of Nium's compliance process.

Compliance status	Description
`INITIATED`	Compliance is initiated and the customer needs to take a few more steps to complete the KYC process, such as adding the required information. This status is applicable only for eKYC.
`IN PROGRESS`	The KYC compliance process is in progress and the customer has some pending action, such as uploading a document.
`ACTION REQUIRED`	The customer uploads documents and waits for verification from the compliance team.
`RFI REQUESTED`	The Nium compliance team raises a request-for-information (RFI) and the customer responds to the RFI through the Respond to RFI API.
`COMPLETED`	The compliance process completes.
`ERROR`	No action is taken. The customer application fails due to an error. Contact Nium customer support for assistance.
`EXPIRED`	The submitted document's date expires. The Nium team may raise an RFI.
`REJECT`	If the compliance team rejects the KYC process, the status changes to `REJECT`. The reinitiate-KYC process is available in this case.

Each action depends upon separate kycStatus and complianceStatus as detailed in this table:

KYC status	Compliance status	Your next action	APIs involved	Remarks
`Pending`	`INITIATED`	Wait for the compliance status callback.	Customer Details V2	eKYC is initiated. The system updates the status according the KYC vendor and our screening results.
`Failed`	`REJECT`	Reinitiate eKYC by providing the same `customerHashId`.	Customer Details V2 Unified Add Customer	Check the remarks or the compliance remarks.
`Pending`	`ERROR`	Email Nium.	Customer Details V2	Nium's compliance team might need to check the errors manually.
`Pending`	`ACTION_REQUIRED`	Wait for the next compliance status update.	Customer Details	Nium's compliance team requires a manual check on this request.
`Pending`	`RFI_REQUESTED`	Check the `rfiDetails` array and provide the requested information through the Respond To RFI API.	Fetch Individual Customer RFI Details Respond To RFI	Nium's compliance team requires additional information to verify the customer.
`Pending`	`RFI_RESPONDED`	Wait for the next compliance status update.	Customer Details V2	Nium's compliance team verifies the information in your Respond to RFI API. Usually, the system updates the compliance status to `ACTION_REQUIRED`.
`Clear`	`COMPLETED`	Continue your user journey, for example, Add card.	Customer Details V2	eKYC is successful and the customer is onboarded.

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NOTE
Nium calls the compliance status callback URL to inform you of any change in the compliance status. Then, you need to call the Customer Details V2 API to retrieve the detailed information.

Within the complianceStatus:

INITIATED is the first status.
COMPLETED is the final status.

4. RFI flow

Refer to RFI process for individual customers.

Reinitiation of onboarding

The onboarding process can be reinitiated if the compliance status is ERROR or REJECTED.

For reinitiation, call the Unified Add Customer API with the previously generated customerHashId.

Upload documents

When onboarding is initiated with kycMode = MANUAL_KYC, then the proof of identity documents are required to be submitted to initiate the KYC process.

In addition to the Unified Add Customer API, Nium offers the Upload Document API which can accept the additional documents in multiple steps.

Use case

Spend Management

This is applicable for the use cases where the business expenses made by the employees are funded by a corporation, i.e., their employer. The employees are required to be onboarded in Nium along with their corporate customers.

While onboarding employees for spend management use cases, the same Unified Add Customer API is used with minimal information for their identity verification. An employer letter alone is sufficient to onboard an employee in Nium. For more information, see Configure the corporate customer and employee relationship.