# Know Your Customer (KYC)

## What Is KYC?

KYC stands for "Know Your Customer". It is the mandatory verification process for a merchant account, required to enable the merchant to receive payments.

KYC involves various standards designed to protect financial institutions from fraud, corruption, money laundering, and terrorist financing.

The KYC process aims to achieve the following objectives:

* Verify the identity of the merchant.
* Understand the nature of the merchant’s business and the source of funds.
* Assess the money laundering risks associated with the merchant.

## Who Conducts the KYC Process?

As the platform operator, you do not need to take any action, as Payrexx handles the entire account verification process on your behalf:

* We contact the merchant.
* We request all necessary documents and information from the merchant.
* We make the decision to approve or reject the account.
* We communicate the decision to the merchant.

## Prohibited Business Models

As a regulated company, Payrexx operates within the strict guidelines of financial authorities, card schemes, and payment processors.

Therefore, we are not able to accept every business model. In particular, business models with products that are prohibited or only partially allowed, as well as those with a high risk of default, must be declined.

The following article provides a list of all unsupported business models:

{% embed url="<https://docs.payrexx.com/merchant/english/the-first-steps/account-verification/prohibited-business-models#the-following-services-are-considered-unsupported-business-models>" %}

### What does KYC rejection mean?

If Payrexx is unable to verify a merchant account, the merchant will not be able to use our own payment providers, [Payrexx Pay](https://docs.payrexx.com/merchant/english/payment-priovder/payrexx-pay) and [Payrexx Pay Plus](https://docs.payrexx.com/merchant/english/payment-priovder/payrexx-pay).

However, the merchant can still use Payrexx as a payment platform along with its [e-commerce tools](https://docs.payrexx.com/merchant/english/account/tools). In this case, at least one [external payment provider](https://docs.payrexx.com/merchant/english/payment-priovder/external-payment-provider) must be activated to process payments.


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